UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-7034

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff - Appellee, 

v. 

SEAN ECHOLS, 

Defendant - Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Columbia. Joseph F. Anderson, Jr., Senior 

District Judge. (3:13-cr-00211-JFA-1) 

Submitted: November 22, 2016 Decided: November 28, 2016

Before DIAZ and THACKER, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior 

Circuit Judge. 

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

Sean Echols, Appellant Pro Se. Stacey Denise Haynes, William 

Kenneth Witherspoon, Assistant United States Attorneys, 

Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. 
2

PER CURIAM: 

Sean Echols, a federal inmate who pled guilty to conspiracy 

to use facilities in interstate commerce in furtherance of a 

murder-for-hire scheme, appeals from the district court’s order 

denying his motion for reconsideration of its prior order 

denying his request for copies of discovery material in his 

closed criminal case.1 Echols asserted that such material2 was

necessary to enable him to present claims challenging his 

240-month prison term. We affirm the district court’s denial of 

this request. 

Copies of transcripts and court records may be provided to 

an indigent litigant at government expense3 upon a showing by the 

litigant of a particularized need for the documents. 

See Jones v. Superintendent, Va. State Farm, 460 F.2d 150, 

 1 Echols was sentenced to 240 months’ imprisonment for his 

conviction in August 2014. The district court denied his 

28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion challenging his conviction in 

April 2015. Echols’s original request for discovery material 

was filed in June 2016, and his motion for reconsideration was 

filed in July 2016. 

2 Echols sought unspecified “discovery material” and 

“Brady[ v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963),]” material of an 

unspecified nature. The motion for reconsideration also 

references summaries of witness statements that Echols claims 

are contained within the discovery material and claimed that 

Echols did not receive a copy of his plea agreement. 

3 We assume, because Echols did not tender payment for 

copying costs, that any request for court records was at 

government expense. 
3

152-53 (4th Cir. 1972). Such a litigant, however, is not 

entitled to free copies “merely to comb the record in the hope 

of discovering some flaw.” United States v. Glass, 317 F.2d 

200, 202 (4th Cir. 1963). To the extent that the discovery 

material Echols sought was contained in court records, he did 

not establish the requisite need for such records under Jones. 

Echols failed to establish why he cannot, without a copy of the 

material he sought, set forth any claims he wishes to raise that 

challenge his 240-month prison term. 

To the extent that Echols sought post-conviction discovery 

to support efforts to obtain relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a 

habeas movant, “unlike the usual civil litigant in federal 

court, is not entitled to discovery as a matter of ordinary 

course.” Bracy v. Gramley, 520 U.S. 899, 904 (1997). Thus, 

discovery is granted only for good cause. Rule 6, Rules 

Governing § 2255 Proceedings. A habeas movant must make 

specific allegations establishing reason to believe that, if the 

facts are fully developed, he is entitled to relief. United 

States v. Roane, 378 F.3d 382, 403 (4th Cir. 2004). We conclude 

after review of the record that Echols has not established good 

cause for post-conviction discovery. 

We therefore affirm the district court’s denial of Echols’s 

motion. United States v. Echols, No. 3:13-cr-00211-JFA-1

(D.S.C. July 14, 2016). We dispense with oral argument because 
4

the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the 

materials before this court and argument would not aid the 

decisional process. 

AFFIRMED