In Jackson v. Crosby, No. 04-15992 (Feb. 2, 2006), the Court denied a motion for reconsideration of an earlier order denying a motion for a certificate of appealability.
The petitioner untimely sought relief in the district court from an order denying a petition for federal habeas relief. The appeal from that order was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. The petitioner then filed a motion under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b), asking the district court to take action so that he could seek appellate review of the earlier order. The district court denied relief, citing Gonzalez v. Dep’t of Corrections, 366 F.3d 1253 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc) (district courts lack jurisdiction to consider 60(b) motions as a basis for reconsidering the denial of habeas relief). A certificate of appealability was denied by both the district court, and by the Court of Appeals. The petitioner then sought reconsideration of the latter order, pointing that the United States Supreme Court had overruled Gonzalez. See 125 S.Ct. 2641.
Denying reconsideration, the Court acknowledged that the Supreme Court’s decision in Gonzalez, which held that 60(b) motions could be a basis for reopening denials of habeas relief, undermined the stated basis for the district court’s original denial of Rule 60(b) relief. However, the petitioner’s motion failed for a separate reason: namely that Rule 60(b) cannot be used to obtain a second chance at a timely appeal.
