Charles Clemans, Jr. v. James Yates

MEMORANDUM

California state prisoner Charles Twain Clemans, Jr. appeals pro se from the district court’s judgment denying his 28 U.S.C: § 2254 habeas petition. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 2253 , and we affirm.

Clemans argues that California Penal Code § 1191.3 and provisions in the Department of Corrections’s operating manual give him the right to earn day-for-day credits against his 28-year sentence. The state appellate court rejected this claim, noting that Penal Code section 2933.1 caps Clemans’s ability to earn credits at 15%. Clemans’s claim fails because federal habe-as relief does not lie for violations of state law, see 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (a); Swarthout v. Cooke, — U.S. -, 131 S.Ct. 859, 861 , 178 L.Ed.2d 732 (2011) (per curiam), and, in any event, we are bound by the state court’s interpretation of state law, see Mendez v. Small, 298 F.3d 1154, 1158 (9th Cir.2002).

We construe Clemans’s additional arguments as a motion to expand the certificate of appealability. So construed, the motion is denied. See 9th Cir. R. 22—1(e); see also Hiivala v. Wood, 195 F.3d 1098, 1104-05 (9th Cir.1999) (per curiam).

Clemans’s request for a copy of the answering brief, received…