United States v. Brouwer

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,  Plaintiff-Appellee, v.  No. 01-7184 WILLIAM DAVID BROUWER, Defendant-Appellant.  Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. Catherine C. Blake, District Judge. (CR-96-362-CCB, CA-01-1854-CCB) Submitted: May 2, 2002 Decided: May 20, 2002 Before NIEMEYER and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge. Remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion. COUNSEL William David Brouwer, Appellant Pro Se. Susan Leslie Strawn, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See Local Rule 36(c). 2 UNITED STATES v. BROUWER OPINION PER CURIAM: William D. Brouwer seeks to appeal the district court’s order deny- ing relief on his motion filed under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West Supp. 2001). For the reasons set forth below, we vacate and remand for fur- ther proceedings.* The district court, acting sua sponte, determined from the face of Brouwer’s motion that his claims were barred by the one-year limita- tions period set forth in § 2255 and dismissed the action without giv- ing Brouwer notice or an opportunity to respond. Our recent decision in Hill v. Braxton, 277 F.3d 701 (4th Cir. 2002), requires the district court to provide such a warning "unless it is indisputably clear from the materials presented to the district court that the petition is untimely and cannot be salvaged by equitable tolling principles." Id. at 707. Because it was not "indisputably clear from the materials presented to the district court" that Brouwer could not salvage his motion, we grant a certificate of appealability, vacate the district court’s order, and remand to the district court to provide Brouwer with the notice and opportunity to respond to which he is now entitled pursuant to Hill. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal con- tentions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process. REMANDED *We note the district court erroneously included drug possession and distribution in its summary of Brouwer’s convictions. While Brouwer raises this as an issue on appeal, it is apparent that this error did not influ- ence the district court’s reasoning, and we do not remand on this basis.