Edmond Adams, III v. Warden Eagleton, No. 16-6410 (4th Cir. 2016)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 16-6410 EDMOND STANLEY ADAMS, III, a/k/a Edmond Adams, Petitioner - Appellant, v. WARDEN EAGLETON, Respondent - Appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Greenville. David C. Norton, District Judge. (6:12-cv-03424-DCN) Submitted: October 27, 2016 Decided: November 9, 2016 Before SHEDD, KEENAN, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges. Dismissed in part; affirmed in part by unpublished per curiam opinion. Edmond Stanley Adams, III, Appellant Pro Se. Donald John Zelenka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Edmond Stanley Adams, III, seeks to appeal two district court orders: (1) the district court’s February 18, 2016 order denying Adams’s Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion for relief from the court’s prior judgment denying his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (2012) petition, and (2) the March 10, 2016 order denying his motion to recuse and appealable related motions. unless a The circuit certificate of appealability. A certificate of February justice 18 or order judge is issues not a 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) (2012). appealability will not issue absent “a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2) (2012). relief on the demonstrating district merits, that court’s debatable or a When the district court denies prisoner reasonable assessment wrong. Slack satisfies jurists this would of the v. McDaniel, standard find U.S. that the claims constitutional 529 by is 473, 484 (2000); see Miller–El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336–38 (2003). When the district court denies relief on procedural grounds, the prisoner must demonstrate both that the dispositive procedural ruling is debatable, and that the motion states claim of the denial of a constitutional right. a debatable Slack, 529 U.S. at 484–85. We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Adams has not made the requisite showing. 2 The district court lacked jurisdiction to deny Adams’s Rule 60(b) motion on the merits because the claims he raised challenged the validity of his state construed convictions, as a and thus successive 28 the motion U.S.C. § should 2254 have been petition. See Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524, 531–32 (2005) (explaining how to differentiate a true Rule 60(b) motion from an unauthorized second or successive habeas corpus petition); United States v. Winestock, 340 F.3d 200, 207 (4th Cir. 2003) (same). In the absence of prefiling authorization from this court, the district court lacked jurisdiction to hear a successive § 2254 petition. See 28 U.S.C. certificate district of § 2244(b)(3) (2012). appealability court’s February and 18 Accordingly, dismiss order. the Adams we deny appeal of remains a the free, however, to pursue the legal issues identified in his Rule 60(b) motion in a motion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2244 (2012). The district court’s March 10 order denied Adams’s motion to recuse and related motions. On appeal, we confine our review to the issues raised in the Appellant’s brief. 34(b). briefs Because do not Adams’s challenge informal the and basis for See 4th Cir. R. supplemental the district informal court’s disposition of the March 10 order, Adams has forfeited appellate review of the order. 423, 430 n.4 (4th See Williams v. Giant Food Inc., 370 F.3d Cir. 2004). district court’s March 10 order. 3 Accordingly, we affirm the We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED IN PART; AFFIRMED IN PART 4
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