UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 11-1599

STANLEY M. BALLENGER, a/k/a Stanley Mark Ballenger, former 

#151010,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

J. DALE OWENS, L, CPL, State Trooper, SC Hwy Patrol Ace 

Team; J. G. STEVENS, L, CPL, State Trooper; C. NICHOLAS 

LAVERY, Esquire; JACK H. LYNN, Esquire,

Defendants – Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Anderson. J. Michelle Childs, District 

Judge. (8:10-cv-02294-JMC)

Argued: January 29, 2013 Decided: March 5, 2013

Before WILKINSON, MOTZ, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

David L. Neal, Hillsborough, North Carolina, for Appellant. 

Andrew Lindemann, DAVIDSON & LINDEMANN, PA, Columbia, South 

Carolina, for Appellees.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Stanley M. Ballenger (“Appellant”) initiated this 

action pro se against his former defense attorney, a South 

Carolina state prosecutor, and two South Carolina state troopers 

under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging, among other things, that an

unconstitutional search and seizure of his vehicle led to the

discovery of illegal drugs and a firearm on the basis of which 

Appellant was charged in state court, pleaded guilty, and was 

ultimately sentenced to imprisonment. The district court 

dismissed Appellant’s suit for failure to satisfy the “favorable 

termination” rule announced in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 

(1994).

Appellant now contends the favorable termination

requirement does not bar his § 1983 suit because he pleaded 

guilty to the underlying charges, citing Haring v. Prosise, 462 

U.S. 306 (1983), and that, as such, a civil attack on the 

alleged constitutional violations does not impugn his 

conviction. Appellant raises this issue for the first time on 

appeal. Because it was not raised in the district court, we 

conclude Appellant waived appellate review. Because Appellant 

waived this central argument, and we find any other arguments he 

may have raised to be without merit, we affirm.
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I.

This court is not unfamiliar with Mr. Ballenger. He 

previously filed a § 1983 suit in 2002 against the State of 

South Carolina and South Carolina State Trooper J. Dale Owens 

based on the same operative facts contained in his present

action. See Ballenger v. Owens, 352 F.3d 842, 843-44 (4th Cir. 

2003) (“Ballenger I”). 

In brief, Appellant was stopped by Trooper Owens for 

following too closely behind another vehicle while driving in 

South Carolina. After detecting the odor of marijuana, Trooper

Owens searched Appellant’s vehicle and discovered illegal drugs 

and a firearm. Appellant pleaded guilty to a drug trafficking

offense and a firearm offense and was sentenced on November 26, 

2011 to a 10-year term of imprisonment.1

 

While he made no direct appeal, Appellant subsequently

sought post-conviction relief in state and federal court and was 

denied. See Ballenger v. McMaster, 146 F. App’x 697 (4th Cir. 

2005); Ballenger v. Mauney, 326 F. App’x 224 (4th Cir. 2009).

 1 Appellant contends that, on the advice of counsel, he pled 

guilty before the state court considered his motion to suppress 

the fruits of the allegedly unconstitutional search. Appellant 

further notes that South Carolina does not permit the entry of 

conditional guilty pleas. See State v. Inman, 395 S.C. 539, 

555, 720 S.E.2d 31, 40 (2011).
4

In Ballenger I, the district court dismissed 

Appellant’s § 1983 complaint without prejudice, concluding that 

1) his action against the State of South Carolina and Trooper 

Owens in his official capacity was barred by the Eleventh 

Amendment; and 2) his action against Trooper Owens in his 

individual capacity was barred by Heck because his criminal 

conviction had not been set aside and a favorable judgment in 

his § 1983 suit would necessarily imply the invalidity of that 

conviction.2

 We affirmed. See Ballenger I, 352 F.3d 842.

Nearly seven years later, Appellant commenced the 

present action pro se on September 1, 2010 -- a § 1983 suit 

largely duplicative of the complaint dismissed in Ballenger I.

Appellant alleges that Trooper Owens, among others, violated his

Fourth Amendment rights by stopping and searching his vehicle. 

Following an automatic referral from the district 

court pursuant to the local rules, the magistrate judge issued a 

Report and Recommendation (“R&R”) on September 8, 2010, 

recommending that the district court dismiss the action. In the 

R&R, the magistrate judge concluded that Appellant’s claims 

 2 The Supreme Court held in Heck that “where success in a 

prisoner’s § 1983 damages action would implicitly question the 

validity of conviction or duration of sentence, the litigant 

must first achieve favorable termination of his available state, 

or federal habeas, opportunities to challenge the underlying 

conviction or sentence.” Muhammad v. Close, 540 U.S. 749, 751 

(2004).
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against Trooper Owens and an additional trooper were barred by 

Heck.3 Appellant lodged objections to the R&R, which the 

district court found to be largely “non-specific, unrelated to 

the dispositive portions of the Magistrate Judge’s Report and 

Recommendation,” or to “merely restate his claims.” J.A. 130.4 

On February 3, 2011, the district court adopted the R&R and 

dismissed Appellant’s complaint with prejudice. Appellant then 

noticed this appeal.

II.

We review de novo the dismissal of Appellant’s 

complaint. See Minor v. Bostwick Laboratories, Inc., 669 F.3d 

428, 432 (4th Cir. 2012).

III.

Appellant contends that the Heck favorable termination 

rule does not bar his § 1983 action because, in his view, a 

conviction by way of a guilty plea cannot be undermined by a 

 3 The magistrate judge also concluded that Appellant’s claim 

against the state prosecutor was barred by the doctrine of 

prosecutorial immunity and that his claim against his former 

defense attorney was not cognizable in a § 1983 suit because the 

attorney was not a state actor. Appellant does not challenge on 

appeal the dismissal of his claims against these parties.

4 Citations to the “J.A.” refer to the Joint Appendix filed 

by the parties in this appeal.
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subsequent determination that the evidence supporting the 

criminal conviction was obtained in violation of the 

Constitution. 512 U.S. 477. He cites for support the pre-Heck

decision Haring v. Prosise, 462 U.S. 306. He argues that 

Haring, which he believes stands for the proposition that a 

claim for damages based on an unconstitutional search and 

seizure does not imply the invalidity of a conviction obtained 

by guilty plea, id. at 318-22, is reconcilable with the commands 

of Heck. Appellee responds that because Appellant did not raise 

the issue in his objections to the R&R in the district court, 

the issue is waived. We agree.

The law of our circuit is clear: “[A] party . . . 

waives a right to appellate review of particular issues by 

failing to file timely objections specifically directed to those 

issues.” United States v. Midgette, 478 F.3d 616, 621 (4th Cir. 

2007). Therefore, “to preserve for appeal an issue in a 

magistrate judge’s report, a party must object to the finding or 

recommendation on that issue with sufficient specificity so as 

reasonably to alert the district court of the true ground for 

the objection.” Id. at 622.

To conclude otherwise would defeat the purpose of 

requiring objections. We would be permitting a party 

to appeal any issue that was before the magistrate 

judge, regardless of the nature and scope of 

objections made to the magistrate judge’s report. 

Either the district court would then have to review 

every issue in the magistrate judge’s proposed 
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findings and recommendations or courts of appeals 

would be required to review issues that the district 

court never considered. In either case, judicial 

resources would be wasted and the district court’s 

effectiveness based on help from magistrate judges 

would be undermined.

Id.

In this case, Appellant’s objections to the R&R failed 

to raise the argument that the favorable termination rule does

not apply to a plaintiff whose underlying conviction was 

obtained by a guilty plea. Instead, Appellant asserted in his 

objections to the R&R, and argues at least in passing on appeal, 

that he was unable to satisfy the favorable termination rule 

because, having completed his sentence, he is no longer in 

custody, citing Wilson v. Johnson, 535 F.3d 262 (4th Cir. 2008).5 

Nothing in his objections suggests Appellant alerted the 

district court to the challenging question of law under Haring

 5 Wilson indicated that Heck does not bar a § 1983 action 

where “a prisoner could not, as a practical matter, seek habeas 

relief.” Wilson, 535 F.3d at 268. Unlike the plaintiff in 

Wilson, who had a window of only four months to meet the 

favorable termination requirement, which he pursued until his 

release, Appellant here pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10

years imprisonment. Not only was this sufficient time to pursue 

post-conviction relief, Appellant actually did so and was 

unsuccessful. See Ballenger I, 352 F.3d at 847 (observing that 

Ballenger’s post-conviction proceedings were pending); Ballenger 

v. McMaster, 146 F. App’x 697 (4th Cir. 2005); Ballenger v. 

Mauney, 326 F. App’x 224 (4th Cir. 2009). In short, the concern 

that drove our court in Wilson to find an exception to Heck --

that a habeas-ineligible former prisoner lacked access to a 

federal forum -- is simply not present here.
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he now presents for the first time on appeal. Indeed, the 

principal decision on which Appellant now relies, Haring v. 

Prosise, 462 U.S. 306, first appeared in his opening brief 

before this court. See Appellant’s Br. at 1. Accordingly, we 

conclude that Appellant waived appellate review.

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, the decision of the 

district court is

AFFIRMED.