COA Denied When Appellant Fails to Contest AEDPA Untimeliness and Tolling Rulings

1. Introduction

Wytch v. Rogers concerns a pro se Oklahoma state prisoner, Stefon Wytch, who sought federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 after a jury convicted him of first-degree murder and feloniously pointing a firearm, resulting in a life-without-parole sentence (plus ten years on the firearm count). After the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) affirmed on direct appeal, Wytch pursued several state post-conviction filings—many dismissed as untimely—and eventually filed a federal habeas petition in October 2024.

The core issue on appeal was not the merits of Wytch’s constitutional claims (ineffective assistance regarding a juror; due process concerning ballistics evidence), but whether he could obtain a certificate of appealability (COA) after the district court dismissed his petition as time-barred under AEDPA’s one-year limitations period and found no basis for statutory or equitable tolling.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Tenth Circuit denied a COA and dismissed the appeal because Wytch did not meaningfully challenge the district court’s procedural holdings: (1) that the § 2254 petition was filed outside AEDPA’s one-year limitations period, and (2) that tolling did not save it. Applying the two-part COA standard for procedural dismissals, the panel concluded Wytch failed to show that reasonable jurists could debate the correctness of the district court’s untimeliness ruling. The court also treated Wytch’s failure to brief tolling as a forfeiture, emphasizing that pro se status does not relieve a litigant of basic appellate briefing obligations.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

The order is heavily structured around established COA doctrine and AEDPA timeliness principles. The cited authorities function less as disputed interpretive tools than as a step-by-step framework that Wytch failed to engage.

• Aragon v. Williams, 819 F. App'x 610 (10th Cir. 2020)
  The court uses Aragon as its primary roadmap for COA review when the district court dismisses on procedural grounds. It provides the operative two-part test (merits + procedural debatability) and the “no merits review if either prong fails” approach.
• Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473 (2000)
  The Supreme Court’s foundational COA standard: when a petition is dismissed on procedural grounds, a COA requires showing that reasonable jurists could debate both (i) whether the petition states a valid constitutional claim and (ii) whether the procedural ruling is correct. The Tenth Circuit quotes Slack via Aragon, but the practical effect is direct: Wytch’s failure to contest tolling and untimeliness prevents satisfying prong two.
• Gibson v. Klinger, 232 F.3d 799 (10th Cir. 2000)
  Cited for the proposition that the court does not reach the merits if the petitioner cannot satisfy both prongs of the procedural-dismissal COA inquiry. This is important because Wytch’s briefing focused on trial errors rather than the procedural bar.
• Preston v. Gibson, 234 F.3d 1118 (10th Cir. 2000)
  Supports the standard AEDPA rule that the one-year limitations period generally runs from finality of judgment after direct review and is tolled while “properly filed” state post-conviction proceedings are pending.
• Habteselassie v. Novak, 209 F.3d 1208 (10th Cir. 2000)
  Supplies the key finality calculation principle used here: if no certiorari petition is filed, the AEDPA clock begins after the 90-day period for seeking Supreme Court review expires.
• Longoria v. Falk, 569 F. App'x 580 (10th Cir. 2014)
  Cited to explain how Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a)(1)(C) can extend a deadline when the last day falls on a weekend or legal holiday—an interpretive point the court notes but which does not come close to curing a years-late filing.
• Garrett v. Selby Connor Maddux & Janer, 425 F.3d 836 (10th Cir. 2005)
  Central to the forfeiture analysis. Garrett stands for the principle that inadequate briefing can forfeit issues on appeal, and that courts will not act as counsel for pro se litigants by constructing arguments or doing legal research to fill briefing gaps. The panel relies on it to hold Wytch’s failure to address tolling is “fatal.”
• Nielsen v. Price, 17 F.3d 1276 (10th Cir. 1994)
  Used to underscore that pro se litigants must follow the same procedural rules as other litigants—reinforcing that pro se status does not excuse failing to contest the dispositive procedural rulings.
• Pfeil v. Everett, 9 F. App'x 973 (10th Cir. 2001) and Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343 (1996)
  These cases appear in a footnote addressing (and effectively declining to consider) a potential AEDPA “state-created impediment” theory under § 2244(d)(1)(B) based on prison lockdown. The court notes that lockdowns qualify only if not related to legitimate penological interests, and emphasizes Wytch did not develop the point on appeal (or with sufficient detail below).

3.2 Legal Reasoning

A. The COA gatekeeping framework controlled the appeal

Because the district court dismissed on a procedural ground (untimeliness) without reaching the merits, the panel treated the COA request as governed by Slack v. McDaniel’s two-part test. The decisive failure was prong two: Wytch did not show that “jurists of reason” could debate the district court’s timeliness/tolling determinations.

B. AEDPA’s limitations period and finality calculation

The court applied the standard start-date rule in 28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)(1)(A) (finality after direct review), supplemented by Supreme Court Rule 13’s 90-day certiorari window. Because Wytch did not petition for certiorari, finality occurred 90 days after the OCCA affirmed on August 29, 2019, so the AEDPA clock began on November 27, 2019 and expired on November 27, 2020 (absent tolling).

Wytch’s federal petition was filed October 1, 2024—well beyond the deadline—making tolling (statutory or equitable) essential.

C. Transfer between federal districts did not save timeliness

Wytch argued, in substance, that filing in the Western District of Oklahoma on October 1, 2024 should be treated as timely. The panel rejected that logic as a matter of dates: a transfer to the Northern District of Oklahoma does not retroactively alter AEDPA’s deadline; it merely changes venue for adjudication.

D. Tolling: the dispositive issue Wytch did not brief

The district court had found: (i) limited statutory tolling occurred during the pendency of the first state post-conviction application, but (ii) the petition was still untimely, and (iii) other attempted state filings (including untimely OCCA submissions) did not provide additional statutory tolling; and (iv) equitable tolling was unavailable because Wytch did not show extraordinary circumstances.

On appeal, Wytch did not address these tolling determinations. The panel treated this as forfeiture under Garrett v. Selby Connor Maddux & Janer: appellate courts do not craft arguments for litigants, even pro se litigants, and noncompliance with appellate briefing rules can “disentitle” a party to review. Thus, even if tolling might have been arguable in theory, Wytch’s failure to raise it doomed the COA application.

E. Lockdown as a state-created impediment was not preserved

The panel noted the district court had considered whether § 2244(d)(1)(B) could apply due to a prison lockdown. Citing Pfeil v. Everett and Lewis v. Casey, it observed that lockdown-based impediment theories require a showing that restrictions were not tied to legitimate penological interests. Because Wytch neither developed the argument on appeal nor provided needed factual detail (duration/reason), the court declined to consider it.

3.3 Impact

Although nonprecedential, the order reinforces several practical—and frequently dispositive—principles in Tenth Circuit habeas practice:

• COA requests live or die on the procedural ruling when dismissal is procedural. Merits-heavy briefing (ineffective assistance, evidentiary unfairness) does not substitute for addressing untimeliness and tolling.
• Appellate forfeiture is a real barrier in pro se habeas cases. The court reiterates it will not research and build tolling arguments that the appellant does not present.
• “Properly filed” and “timely” state collateral proceedings matter for statutory tolling. The timeline shows repeated state-court dismissals as untimely—often a signal that § 2244(d)(2) tolling may not apply or will be limited.
• Late filings measured in years are rarely salvageable absent well-developed tolling theories. Even generous time-computation rules (e.g., Fed. R. Civ. P. 6(a)) cannot bridge multi-year delays.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Certificate of Appealability (COA): A jurisdictional “permission slip” to appeal in most habeas cases. When the case was dismissed for a procedural reason (like being late), the petitioner must show the procedure ruling is reasonably debatable and that the constitutional claim is at least debatably valid.
• AEDPA one-year statute of limitations (28 U.S.C. § 2244(d)): A strict one-year filing deadline for federal habeas petitions, typically starting when the conviction becomes “final” after direct review ends (including the 90-day period to seek Supreme Court review if no cert petition is filed).
• Statutory tolling (§ 2244(d)(2)): The one-year clock pauses while a “properly filed” state post-conviction or collateral review application is pending. If the state filing is rejected as untimely, it often does not count as “properly filed” for tolling purposes.
• Equitable tolling: A judge-made safety valve that can excuse lateness only in exceptional circumstances (typically requiring diligent pursuit and extraordinary obstacles).
• Forfeiture on appeal: If an appellant does not adequately raise and argue an issue in the opening brief, the appellate court may treat it as abandoned and refuse to consider it.
• § 2244(d)(1)(B) “state-created impediment”: A later start date for the one-year period if unconstitutional state action prevented filing. In the prison context, generalized lockdown allegations usually require specific facts and a showing the restriction was not justified by legitimate penological interests.

5. Conclusion

Wytch v. Rogers underscores a procedural reality of federal habeas litigation: when a petition is dismissed as untimely, the path to a COA runs through the timeliness and tolling analysis, not the underlying trial-error narrative. Applying Slack v. McDaniel as operationalized in Tenth Circuit practice, the court denied a COA because Wytch did not meaningfully challenge the district court’s untimeliness and tolling rulings, thereby forfeiting review. The order functions as a cautionary template—particularly for pro se litigants—that procedural compliance and targeted appellate briefing are essential to clear AEDPA’s gatekeeping barriers.