Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-15-06478/USCOURTS-ca4-15-06478-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Dominique Alexander Jones
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-6478

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

DOMINIQUE ALEXANDER JONES, a/k/a Big Nique, a/k/a Nique,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. James C. Fox, Senior

District Judge. (5:10-cr-00074-F-1; 5:15-cv-00072)

Submitted: September 10, 2015 Decided: September 23, 2015

Before NIEMEYER, KING, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.

Dismissed in part; affirmed in part by unpublished per curiam 

opinion.

Dominique Alexander Jones, Appellant Pro Se. Jennifer P. 

May-Parker, Assistant United States Attorney, Raleigh, North 

Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Dominique Jones appeals the district court’s orders 

dismissing his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion as successive but 

unauthorized, and treating his Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion as a 

successive § 2255 motion and dismissing it on the same basis. 

On appeal, Jones re-asserts his challenges to his underlying 

conviction, and argues that his postjudgment motion is not a 

successive § 2255 motion, but is in fact a true Rule 60(b)

motion.

To the extent Jones appeals from the district court’s 

dismissal of his § 2255 motion, he needs a circuit justice or 

judge to issue a certificate of appealability in order to 

proceed. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) (2012). A certificate of 

appealability will not issue absent “a substantial showing of 

the denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2) 

(2012). When, as here, 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 a debatable claim of the denial of a constitutional 

right. Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484-85 (2000). 

Federal prisoners are prohibited from filing “second or 

successive” collateral attacks on a conviction or sentence 

absent preauthorization from a federal circuit court. 28 

U.S.C. § 2255(h). Because Jones fails to demonstrate that the 

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district court’s ruling that he lacked authorization to submit a 

successive § 2255 motion was debatable, we deny a certificate of 

appealability and dismiss this portion of the appeal.

Jones does not, however, require a certificate of 

appealability in order for us to determine whether his 

postjudgment motion was a § 2255 motion, a true Rule 60(b) 

motion, or a hybrid of both. United States v. McRae, 793 F.3d 

392, 400 (4th Cir. 2015). A district court must treat a Rule 

60(b) motion as a successive collateral review application “when 

failing to do so would allow the applicant ‘to evade the bar 

against relitigation of claims presented in a prior application 

or the bar against litigation of claims not presented in a prior 

application.’” United States v. Winestock, 340 F.3d 200, 206 

(4th Cir. 2003) (quoting Calderon v. Thompson, 523 U.S. 538, 553 

(1998)). In distinguishing between a proper motion for 

reconsideration and a successive application, we have stated 

that “a motion directly attacking the prisoner’s conviction or 

sentence will usually amount to a successive application, while 

a motion seeking a remedy for some defect in the collateral 

review process will generally be deemed a proper motion to 

reconsider.” Id. at 207. 

After reviewing the record, we conclude that the district 

court properly construed Jones’ postjudgment motion as a 

successive § 2255 motion because in it, Jones attacks his 

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conviction without attempting to remedy some defect in the 

collateral review process. Because Jones previously filed a 

§ 2255 motion and has not received authorization to submit a 

successive § 2255 motion, we affirm the district court’s order

dismissing his postjudgment motion, reconstrued as a § 2255 

motion, for want of jurisdiction.

Under our holding in Winestock, we must construe Jones’

notice of appeal and informal brief as an application to file a 

second or successive § 2255 motion. Winestock, 340 F.3d at 208. 

In order to obtain authorization to file a successive § 2255 

motion, a prisoner must assert claims based on either:

(1) newly discovered evidence that . . . would be 

sufficient to establish by clear and convincing 

evidence that no reasonable factfinder would have 

found the movant guilty of the offense; or

(2) a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive

to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, 

that was previously unavailable.

28 U.S.C. § 2255(h). Jones’ claims satisfy neither of these 

criteria. Therefore, we deny authorization to file a successive 

§ 2255 motion.

We also deny Jones’ motions to appoint counsel and for 

default judgment. We dispense with oral argument because the 

facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the 

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materials before this court and argument would not aid the 

decisional process.

DISMISSED IN PART;

AFFIRMED IN PART

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