Campbell v. Bear, 694 F. App'x 658

Danny R. Campbell, an Oklahoma state prisoner convicted of first-degree murder in 1979 and serving life, filed multiple 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petitions over the years without success.
Campbell filed five § 2254 petitions in district court that the magistrate judge found to be second or successive and thus unauthorized.
The magistrate judge issued reports recommending dismissal; Campbell filed a single, largely unintelligible objection to all five reports.
The district court conducted de novo review, adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendations, and dismissed the five petitions for lack of jurisdiction because they were second or successive and Campbell had not obtained appellate authorization under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A).
Campbell sought a certificate of appealability (COA) to appeal those dismissals; the panel reviewed his pro se filings liberally but denied a COA and dismissed the appeal.
The court granted Campbell leave to proceed on appeal without prepayment of fees (IFP) but noted only prepayment was waived, not the fees themselves.

Issue	Campbell's Argument	Government/District Court Argument	Held
Whether district court had jurisdiction to hear these § 2254 petitions	Campbell contended the filings should be heard on the merits	District court argued petitions were second or successive and filed without this court’s prior authorization under § 2244(b)(3)(A), so no jurisdiction	Held: No jurisdiction; petitions are unauthorized second/successive and properly dismissed
Whether Campbell is entitled to a COA from the procedural dismissal	Implied that dismissal was incorrect and merits should be reviewed	Court argued Campbell must show reasonable jurists would debate both the merits and the correctness of the procedural ruling (Slack standard)	Held: COA denied — jurists of reason would not find the procedural ruling debatable
Whether pro se status alters review of COA request	Argued pro se filings should be liberally construed to allow appeal	Court agreed to liberally construe but found filings still insufficient to raise a debatable procedural or substantive claim	Held: Liberally construed but insufficient to warrant COA
Whether IFP should be granted on appeal	Requested leave to proceed without prepayment	Court evaluated under § 1915 and granted waiver of prepayment only	Held: IFP granted only as to prepayment of fees; fees themselves not waived

In re Cline, 531 F.3d 1249 (10th Cir.) (authorization required before filing second or successive § 2254)
Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473 (U.S.) (COA standards for procedural dismissals require showing both debatability of constitutional claim and of procedural ruling)
Clark v. Oklahoma, 468 F.3d 711 (10th Cir.) (pro se filings are to be liberally construed)