State v. Mathis

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NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

No. 112,599

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS


STATE OF KANSAS,
Appellee,

v.

COY MATHIS,
Appellant.


MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appeal from Wyandotte District Court; WESLEY K. GRIFFIN, judge. Opinion filed October 2,
2015. Affirmed.

Coy Mathis, appellant pro se.

Sheryl L. Lidtke, chief deputy district attorney, Jerome A. Gorman, district attorney, and Derek
Schmidt, attorney general, for appellee.

Before HILL, P.J., BUSER, J., and WILLIAM R. MOTT, District Judge, assigned.

Per Curiam: We affirm the district court's denial of Coy Mathis' K.S.A. 60-1507
motion because it was procedurally barred.

The issues here have been litigated before.

Coy Mathis was convicted of felony murder in 2001. After a remand hearing in
the district court, the Supreme Court, in his direct appeal, considered Mathis' claims of
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trial counsel ineffectiveness. The court affirmed his conviction in 2006. While that appeal
was pending, a K.S.A. 60-1507 motion that Mathis filed was dismissed because it raised
the same issues of counsel ineffectiveness brought in the direct appeal. After that, Mathis
sought habeas corpus relief in federal court but was unsuccessful.

He went back to state court in 2010 and filed another K.S.A. 60-1507 motion. The
district court denied relief after it concluded the motion was successive and untimely.
This dismissal was affirmed by a panel of this court in Mathis v. State, No. 107,525, 2013
WL 781111, at *2-3 (Kan. App.) (unpublished opinion), rev. denied 298 Kan. 1203
(2013). This court also considered three allegations of ineffective assistance of appellate
counsel and found appellate counsel's actions at the Van Cleave hearing were not
deficient. Mathis, 2013 WL 781111, at *3-4.

Just before the Kansas Supreme Court denied Mathis' petition for review in
Mathis, 2013 WL 781111, he filed a K.S.A. 60-1507 motion in May 2013 that is the
subject of this appeal. In this motion, Mathis alleged his appellate counsel provided
ineffective assistance and that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to
consider the 2003 K.S.A. 60-1507 motion while Mathis' direct criminal appeal was
pending before the Kansas Supreme Court. Mathis argued that both the district court and
this court in Mathis, 2013 WL 781111, when considering his 2010 K.S.A. 60-1507
motion, "ignored this jurisdictional issue," which Mathis claims rose to the level of
manifest injustice to allow the extension of the 1-year time limitation. The State
responded that Mathis' K.S.A. 60-1507 motion was both untimely and successive.

The district court summarily denied Mathis' motion. The court's denial did not
address the merits of Mathis' claims. The district court concluded that: (1) the motion
was untimely and Mathis failed to establish manifest injustice to permit the motion to be
filed more than a year after his direct appeal had become final; and (2) the motion was
successive because Mathis had filed a previous K.S.A. 60-1507 motion in 2010.
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This motion is procedurally barred.

To us, Mathis claims the district court had no subject matter jurisdiction over his
2003 K.S.A. 60-1507 motion while his direct appeal was pending before the Supreme
Court, contrary to Supreme Court Rule 183(c)(2) (2014 Kan. Ct. R. Annot. 285).
Therefore, in his view, the district court erred in finding this jurisdictional error was
without merit. He now asks this court to reverse the order dismissing his 2013 K.S.A. 60-
1507 motion and permit him to file yet another K.S.A. 60-1507 motion.

There are two reasons we reject this request. First, even if we assume that the
district court lacked jurisdiction to consider his 2003 K.S.A. 60-1507 motion, this would
still be his second proceeding under K.S.A. 60-1507. In a K.S.A. 60-1507 proceeding, the
district court is not required to entertain a second or successive motion for similar relief
on behalf of the same prisoner. State v. Trotter, 296 Kan. 898, 904, 295 P.3d 1039 (2013)
(citing K.S.A. 60-1507[c]).

A second or successive motion for relief under K.S.A. 60-1507 need not be
considered in the absence of a showing of circumstances justifying consideration of such
a motion. Dunlap v. State, 221 Kan. 268, 270, 559 P.2d 788 (1977). Such exceptional
circumstances are unusual events or intervening changes in the law that prevented the
movant from reasonably being able to raise all of the claimed trial errors in the preceding
K.S.A. 60-1507 motion. State v. Kelly, 291 Kan. 868, 872, 248 P.3d 1282 (2011); see
Supreme Court Rule 183(d) (2014 Kan. Ct. R. Annot. 285). Absent a showing of
exceptional circumstances, the district court can dismiss a second or successive K.S.A.
60-1507 motion as an abuse of remedy. Kelly, 291 Kan. at 872.

Mathis' K.S.A. 60-1507 motion neither acknowledged his burden to show
circumstances justifying consideration of his successive motion nor made any arguments
to support a finding of exceptional circumstances. In addition, Mathis raises no
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arguments on appeal in defense of his successive K.S.A. 60-1507 motion. The filing of
the successive motion constituted an abuse of remedy. The district court properly
declined to review Mathis' claims because they were advanced in a successive motion
under K.S.A. 60-1507.

In addition, Mathis raised the identical jurisdictional argument in his appellate
brief before this court in Mathis, 2013 WL 781111, and in his motion for rehearing under
Supreme Court Rule 7.05 (2014 Kan. Ct. R. Annot. 69). This court considered and
rejected his argument on both occasions. Issues raised and previously decided in prior
K.S.A. 60-1507 motions, or that could have been presented but were not, are res judicata
and cannot be raised in subsequent motions. State v. Martin, 294 Kan. 638, 640-41, 279
P.3d 704 (2012).

Our second reason for rejecting his argument is the time limit. Under K.S.A. 60-
1507(f)(1), a criminal defendant has 1 year from when his or her conviction becomes
final to file a motion under K.S.A. 60-1507(a). The Kansas Supreme Court issued its
mandate in Mathis' direct appeal in April 2006. Mathis did not file this K.S.A. 60-1507
motion until May 2013. Because Mathis filed this K.S.A. 60-1507 motion clearly out of
time, he must show that an extension of that deadline was necessary to prevent a manifest
injustice. K.S.A. 60-1507(f)(2); Kelly, 291 Kan. at 873. The phrase "manifest injustice"
has been interpreted to mean circumstances that are "obviously unfair" or "shocking to
the conscience." Kelly, 291 Kan. at 873. Mathis makes no argument concerning manifest
injustice; thus, his K.S.A. 60-1507 proceeding is procedurally barred because of the 1-
year time limitation.

While it is true that subject matter jurisdiction can be raised at any time, there
must be a procedural mechanism for presenting the jurisdictional argument to the court.
A K.S.A. 60-1507 motion is the mechanism for postconviction relief from the judgment
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of conviction and, as we have discussed, that mechanism is not available to Mathis. In
Trotter, our Supreme Court found that a movant could not use a K.S.A. 60-1507 motion
to present a subject matter jurisdiction argument for the first time when the movant is
procedurally barred from using a K.S.A. 60-1507 motion. 296 Kan. at 905.

The district court did not err in summarily denying Mathis' motion under K.S.A.
60-1507.

Affirmed.