Whether a federal habeas court's failure to review the last reasoned state court decision under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) is a defect under Rule 60(b)

QUESTION PRESENTED Tremane Wood was convicted of felony murder for participating in a robbery in which his older brother killed one of the robbery’s victims and confessed to that fact. Represented by conflict counsel who received a $10,000 flat fee, did little to no work outside of court, and was impaired by drug addiction, Mr. Wood was sentenced to death while his brother was sentenced to life without parole in a separate trial. In his federal habeas petition, Mr. Wood raised a claim under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), based on conflict counsel’s penalty-phase ineffectiveness. When the district court adjudicated that claim, however, it failed to review the last reasoned state court decision adjudicating the claim’s merits—a fact which the State of Oklahoma did not dispute in the proceedings below—as required by this Court’s decisions in Yist v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797 (1991), in Wilson v. Sellers, 584 U.S. 122 (2018), and by 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d). Based on that fundamental defect in the district court’s methodology for adjudicating his Strickland claim, along with new and various extraordinary circumstances, Mr. Wood moved the district court to reopen the judgment in his habeas proceeding under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(6). Without reaching the Rule 60(b)(6) motion’s merits, the district court decided that it was “not a true Rule 60(b) motion,” rather it was an unauthorized habeas petition, and transferred it to the Tenth Circuit under 28 U.S.C § 1631 for authorization under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b). On transfer from the district court, the Tenth Circuit also construed Mr. Wood’s Rule 60(b) Motion as an unauthorized petition and denied his request for remand in an order that conflicts with this Court’s decisions in Yist, Wilson, and Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524 (2005); with the Tenth Circuit’s own precedent in Church v. Sullivan, 942 F.2d 1501 (10th Cir. 1991); and with the decisions of every court of appeals interpreting and applying Yist’s rule as the methodology for reviewing state court decisions under § 2254(d). This petition presents the following questions: Does a federal habeas court’s failure to review under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) the last reasoned state court decision adjudicating a federal claim’s merits constitute a “defect” in the integrity of a habeas proceeding under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) and Gonzalez? Does 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(E) remove this Court’s jurisdiction to review the Tenth Circuit’s denial of a motion to remand what it construed as an unauthorized habeas petition? i