PER CURIAM: ^[*]

Following a jury trial, Daniel Watts, Louisiana prisoner # 437719, was convicted of attempted second-degree murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison. After his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition was dismissed as untimely, he filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2241 petition challenging his conviction. The district court construed this motion as an unauthorized successive § 2254 petition and *2 Case: 16-31015 Document: 00514128342 Page: 2 Date Filed: 08/23/2017

No. 16-31015

transferred the matter to this court. The district court’s transfer order is an appealable collateral order over which this court has jurisdiction. See In re Bradford , 660 F.3d 226, 228-29 (5th Cir. 2011); see also United States v. Fulton, 780 F.3d 683, 688 (5th Cir. 2015).

Watts argues that the district court erred by construing his § 2241 petition as a successive § 2254 application. According to Watts, he was convicted of an illegal, nonresponsive verdict, and, as such, he asserts that he is not challenging his conviction under § 2254 because there is no valid conviction to challenge.

As the record shows, Watts’s petition challenges the validity of the same Louisiana conviction for attempted second-degree murder that was the subject of his first § 2254 petition, and this challenge could have been raised in that petition. See Leal Garcia v. Quarterman , 573 F.3d 214, 222 (5th Cir. 2009); In re Cain , 137 F.3d 234, 235 (5th Cir. 1998). Therefore, the district court properly construed the petition as a successive § 2254 petition, over which it lacked jurisdiction, and transferred it to this court. See Felker v. Turpin , 518 U.S. 651, 662 (1996); United States v. Key , 205 F.3d 773, 774 (5th Cir. 2000). Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court’s transfer order.

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[*] Pursuant to 5 TH C IR . R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5 TH C IR . R. 47.5.4.