Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-19-06180/USCOURTS-ca10-19-06180-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Sean Alexander Sellers
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FILED

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit

January 24, 2020

Christopher M. Wolpert

Clerk of Court

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

_________________________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

SEAN ALEXANDER SELLERS, 

 Defendant - Appellant.

No. 19-6180

(D.C. No. 5:19-CR-00035-G-1)

(W.D. Okla.)

_________________________________

ORDER

_________________________________

Before HARTZ, PHILLIPS, and EID, Circuit Judges.

_________________________________

Appellant Sean A. Sellers, acting pro se, filed a notice of his intent to appeal the 

sentence he received following the district court’s entry of judgment on his plea of guilty 

to being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). Pursuant 

to Fed. R. App. P. 46.3(A), the court directed Mr. Sellers’ retained counsel, Michael S. 

Johnson, to perfect the appeal. 

The government filed a motion to dismiss the appeal as untimely. Mr. Sellers’ 

counsel filed a response to the government’s motion, in which he stated that, “[b]ecause 

[Mr. Sellers] did not timely file his Notice of Appeal or request that one be filed and 

because [Mr. Sellers] expressly waived his right to appeal in the plea agreement counsel 

cannot think of any grounds in which to contest the Government’s Motion to Dismiss.”

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This court directed Mr. Sellers personally to respond to the government’s motion 

to dismiss and his counsel’s response. Mr. Sellers then filed: (1) a Response to U.S. 

Attorney Timothy J. Downing and Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Anderson “Motion to 

Dismiss”; and (2) Appellant’s Memorandum of Law in Support of Appellants Request for 

Appointment of Counsel and Appellants Response to Counsel and the Governments 

Motions to Dismiss, which the court collectively construes as Mr. Sellers’ pro se response 

to the motion to dismiss and his counsel’s response. Upon consideration of these filings, 

the district court docket, and the applicable law, the court grants the government’s motion 

to dismiss for the reasons set forth below.

The defendant in a criminal case must file his notice of appeal in the district court 

within 14 days after entry of judgment. Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(1). The district court is 

authorized to extend the time to appeal, but the extension may not exceed 30 days after 

the time to appeal expires. Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(4). The time limits set forth in Rules 

4(b)(1) and 4(b)(4) are “inflexible claim-processing rule[s]” that the government may 

forfeit if it does not properly raise. United States v. Garduño, 506 F.3d 1287, 1291 (10th 

Cir. 2007). If the government properly invokes the time bar, however, this court must 

grant relief. United States v. Mitchell, 518 F.3d 740, 744 (10th Cir 2008) (citing 

Garduño, 506 F.3d at 1290-91).

Here the district court sentenced Mr. Sellers to 63 months’ imprisonment on 

September 17, 2019, and entered its judgment and sentence on the docket the following 

day. The time to appeal expired 14 days later, on October 2, 2019. See Fed. R. App. 

P. 4(b)(1)(A)(i). However, Mr. Sellers did not file his notice of appeal with the district 

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court until December 12, 2019. The notice of appeal did not include a certificate of 

service, but was stamped as received by prison officials on December 9, 2019 and 

postmarked that same day. Thus, even giving Mr. Sellers every possible benefit of the 

prison mailbox rule, he did not timely appeal the district court’s judgment, see Fed. R. 

App. P. 4(c)(1), nor did he ask the district court to extend that deadline within the time he 

could properly do so. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(b)(4).

The government properly invoked the time bar by filing a motion to dismiss Mr. 

Sellers’ appeal as untimely. Accordingly, the court grants the government’s motion and 

dismisses the appeal. See Mitchell, 518 F.3d at 744.

The court denies Mr. Sellers’ renewed request for the appointment of counsel as 

well as any other relief he has requested.

APPEAL DISMISSED.

Entered for the Court

CHRISTOPHER M. WOLPERT, Clerk

by: Lisa A. Lee

 Counsel to the Clerk

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