UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

┐ CURTIS KELLER, │ Petitioner-Appellant, │ > No. 21-6037 │ v. │ │ KEVIN GENOVESE, Warden, │ Respondent-Appellee. │ ┘ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee at Memphis. No. 2:18-cv-02542—Mark S. Norris Sr., District Judge.

Argued: March 8, 2023

Decided and Filed: April 17, 2023

Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; SILER and MATHIS, Circuit Judges. _________________

COUNSEL ARGUED: Daniel G. Randolph, COVINGTON & BURLING LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Michael M. Stahl, OFFICE OF THE TENNESSEE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Daniel G. Randolph, Michael L. Rosenthal, COVINGTON & BURLING LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Michael M. Stahl, OFFICE OF THE TENNESSEE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee. _________________

OPINION _________________

MATHIS, Circuit Judge. Curtis Keller, currently serving a 210-year sentence after a jury convicted him of numerous violent felonies, appeals the district court’s denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Keller seeks relief on a double-jeopardy claim. But because Keller, by his own concession, procedurally defaulted his double-jeopardy claim by No. 21-6037 Keller v. Genovese Page 2

failing to raise it before the state trial court in a motion for new trial, we affirm the denial of his petition.

I.

On May 26, 2010, Keller and at least two accomplices broke into a house occupied by Andrew Morrow, Tamika Jones, and Jones’s two minor children in Shelby County, Tennessee. Keller threatened Morrow, Jones, and one child with a gun while demanding money. One assailant repeatedly struck Morrow in the head and then all the assailants ransacked the house. One child hid and called 911. Law enforcement arrived at the residence and apprehended Keller. Keller explained to law enforcement that he robbed the house to recover money from a previous drug transaction with Morrow.

A Tennessee grand jury indicted Keller, charging him with one count of attempted especially aggravated robbery (of Morrow), one count of especially aggravated burglary, one count of employing a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony, two counts of especially aggravated kidnapping (of a child and Jones), three counts of aggravated assault (of a child, Jones, and Morrow), and one count of being a felon in possession of a handgun. After the State dismissed the felon in possession count, Keller was tried before a Shelby County Criminal Court jury and found guilty of the other eight counts. The trial court imposed an effective sentence of 240 years’ imprisonment.

On March 21, 2012, Keller filed a motion for new trial. In the motion, Keller raised several challenges to his convictions and sentence but did not raise a double-jeopardy claim. The trial court denied the motion.

Keller appealed his conviction and sentence to the Tennessee Court of C