Appeal
from the United States District Court for the Middle District
of Florida D.C. Docket No. 3:17-cv-01260-BJD-MCR
Before: ED CARNES, Chief Judge, MARCUS, and WILLIAM PRYOR,
Circuit Judges.
PER
CURIAM:
Albert
Holland, a Florida death row inmate, appeals the district
court's orders dismissing his 28 U.S.C. § 2254
petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and denying
his motion for reconsideration. We affirm.[1]
I.
Nearly
thirty years ago, Albert Holland attacked a woman and left
her semiconscious with severe head wounds. Then, when the
police tried to arrest him, Holland grabbed one of the
officers' guns and fatally shot the officer in the groin
and stomach. A Florida jury convicted Holland of first-degree
murder (among other things) and the state trial court
sentenced him to death.
Since
then, Holland's case has generated over two decades'
worth of litigation, most of which is not relevant to this
appeal. See Holland v. Florida, 775 F.3d 1294,
1298-1305 (11th Cir. 2014) (setting out the procedural
history). For our purposes, it is important to know that
after Holland's conviction and sentence became final, and
after he unsuccessfully sought postconviction relief in state
court, he filed three federal habeas petitions. First, in
2006 Holland filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition in the
Southern District of Florida. That petition, which made it
all the way up to the Supreme Court and back, was ultimately
denied on the merits. See Holland, 775 F.3d at 1322.
Second, in 2009 Holland filed a petition under 28 U.S.C.
§ 2241 in the Middle District of Florida. The district
court dismissed that petition without prejudice. It found
that although Holland labeled the petition as one arising
under § 2241, the petition challenged the validity of
his conviction and was therefore subject to the second or
successive requirements set out in 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b),
including the requirement that he seek this Court's
authorization before filing it. Because Holland did not
obtain our authorization, the district court concluded that
it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the petition. Both
the district court and this Court denied Holland a
certificate of appealability. See Holland v. Sec'y,
Dep't of Corr., No. 09-13497 (11th Cir. Nov. 24,
2010).
That
brings us to Holland's third federal habeas petition, the
subject of this appeal. In 2017 Holland filed a habeas
petition in the Middle District of Florida. Once again, he
did not obtain this Court's authorization to do so. So
once again, the district court dismissed the petition without
prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and denied
Holland a certificate of appealability. Holland then filed a
motion for reconsideration, which the district court denied
after concluding that it did not meet the requirements for
altering or amending a judgment under Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 59(e) or for relief from final judgment under
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b). Holland now appeals
both orders.[2]
II.
We
review de novo whether the district court had
jurisdiction over Holland's third federal habeas
petition. See Bowles v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of
Corr., 935 F.3d 1176, 1180 (11th Cir. 2019). It did not.
Holland has already filed two habeas petitions in federal
court. The first of those petitions was denied on the merits.
That means any later petition -- containing claims, like the
ones here, that could have been raised when Holland filed his
initial § 2254 petition -- that Holland filed is
considered "successive" and must meet the
requirements set out in 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b). See
Boyd v. United States, 754 F.3d 1298, 1302 (11th Cir.
2014) (holding that an earlier-in-time petition can only
render a later one successive if it was denied on the
merits). One of those requirements is that the petitioner
"move in the appropriate court of appeals for an order
authorizing the district court to consider the
[petition]" before he files it in district court. 28
U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A). Because Holland did not do so,
the district court was without jurisdiction to consider his
petition on the merits and had no choice but to dismiss it.
See Burton v. Stewart, 549 U.S. 147, 157 (2007)
(holding that a district court must dismiss a petition
"for lack of jurisdiction" if the petitioner
doesn't obtain the court of appeals' authorization
before filing it).
To the
extent Holland argues that his petition was filed under
§ 2241 instead of § 2254, and as a result, the
second or successive requirements do not apply, we disagree.
This Court has long held that "a prisoner collaterally
attacking his conviction or sentence may not avoid the
various procedural restrictions imposed on § 2254
petitions . . . by nominally bringing suit under §
2241." Antonelli v. Warden, U.S.P. Atlanta, 542
F.3d 1348, 1351 (11th Cir. 2008). There is no question that
the claims Holland asserted in his third federal habeas
petition attacked the validity of his conviction and
sentence. And there is no question that the authorization
requirement set out in § 2244(b)(3)(A) is one of the
procedural restrictions that Antonelli was talking
about. See Bowles, 935 F.3d at 1182 (describing
"the AEDPA's restrictions on second or successive
applications" as a "procedural obstacle" that
cannot be overcome by bringing suit under § 2241). So
even if Holland intended for his third federal habeas
petition to be filed under § 2241 and not § 2254 --
an argument he never made in the district court -- he still
needed this Court's authorization before filing the
petition, and the district court still needed to dismiss the
petition because he failed to obtain that authorization.
III.
Holland
did not specify whether he filed his motion for
reconsideration under Rule 59(e) or Rule 60(b). Either way,
we review the district court's denial for an abuse of
discretion. Jenkins v. Anton, 922 F.3d 1257, 1263-64
(11th Cir. 2019); Lugo v. Sec'y, Fla. Dep't of
Corr., 750 F.3d 1198, 1207 (11th Cir. 2014). Under that
standard "we affirm unless we determine that the
district court applied an incorrect legal standard, failed to
follow proper procedures in making the relevant
determination, or made findings of fact that are clearly
erroneous." Lugo, 750 F.3d at 1207. Because we
conclude that the district court did not err in dismissing
Holland's petition for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction, we also conclude that the district court did
not abuse its discretion by denying Holland's motion for
reconsideration of that dismissal.
AF ...