F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
February 10, 2006
TENTH CIRCUIT Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
DANIEL O’NEILL,
Petitioner-Appellant, No. 05-2213
v. (D.C. No. CIV-04-918 MCA/DJS)
JAMES JANECKA, Warden; (D. New Mex.)
ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR THE
STATE OF NEW MEXICO,
Respondents-Appellees.
ORDER
Before HENRY, McKAY, and EBEL, Circuit Judges.
Mr. O’Neill is currently serving a thirty-three year sentence in New Mexico
state prison to be followed by two years parole. In his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition,
he alleges ineffective assistance of counsel and that the state failed to properly
consider his post-conviction motions. The magistrate judge recommended to the
district court that Mr. O’Neill’s petition be dismissed due to failure to exhaust the
available state law remedies and because the petition was time-barred. Mr.
O’Neill failed to object to the magistrate judge’s recommendation, and the district
court adopted the recommendation and dismissed Mr. O’Neill’s petition. The
district court also denied Mr. O’Neill’s request for a certificate of appealability.
Mr. O’Neill now appeals that dismissal to this court.
In an August 11, 2005 order from this court, we requested that in his
appellate brief Mr. O’Neill discuss whether he had waived his right to appeal his
petition’s dismissal when he failed to object to the magistrate judge’s
recommendation. Mr. O’Neill did not explain his failure to timely object to the
magistrate judge’s recommendation. That failure to object to the magistrate’s
recommendation now bars him from seeking appellate review of the district
court’s dismissal. See Sealock v. Colorado, 218 F.3d 1205, 1209 (10th Cir.
2000).
To grant a certificate of appealability, Petitioner must make a “substantial
showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2) (1994).
To meet this burden, Petitioner must demonstrate “that reasonable jurists could
debate whether (or, for that matter, agree that) the petition should have been
resolved in a different manner or that the issues presented were adequate to
deserve encouragement to proceed further.” Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473,
484 (2000) (quotation omitted).
We have carefully reviewed Mr. O’Neill’s brief, the district court’s
disposition, the magistrate judge’s recommendation, and the record on appeal.
Nothing in the facts, the record on appeal, or Mr. O’Neill’s filing raises an issue
which meets our standard for the grant of a certificate of appealability. For
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substantially the same reasons set forth by the magistrate judge and adopted by
the district court in its Order and Judgment of June 20, 2005, we cannot say “that
reasonable jurists could debate whether (or, for that matter, agree that) the
petition should have been resolved in a different manner.” Id.
We DENY Mr. O’Neill’s request for a certificate of appealability and
DISMISS the appeal.
Entered for the Court
Monroe G. McKay
Circuit Judge
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