UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 09-8186
STANLEIGH SHAW,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Respondent - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Terrence W. Boyle,
District Judge. (5:09-hc-02107-BO)
Submitted: November 22, 2010 Decided: March 17, 2011
Before WILKINSON, DUNCAN, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by unpublished
per curiam opinion.
Stanleigh Shaw, Appellant Pro Se.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Stanleigh Shaw was convicted in the Northern District
of Alabama of possession of child pornography and sentenced in
August 2008 to thirty-seven months in prison. Shaw, who is
incarcerated at FCI-Butner, filed the subject 28 U.S.C. § 2241
(2006) petition in the Eastern District of North Carolina. The
district court found that Shaw’s claims, which attacked his
conviction, were properly raised in a 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West
Supp. 2010) motion, rather than a § 2241 petition. However, the
district court declined to construe Shaw’s petition as a § 2255
motion because jurisdiction to entertain such a motion lies in
the Northern District of Alabama and because such a construction
would require notice to Shaw in accordance with Castro v. United
States, 540 U.S. 375 (2003). The court dismissed the matter
without prejudice as an improperly brought § 2241 petition.
Shaw appeals.
A federal prisoner seeking to challenge the legality
of his conviction or sentence must proceed pursuant to § 2255,
with § 2241 petitions generally reserved for challenges to the
execution of the sentence. In re Vial, 115 F.3d 1192, 1194 n.5
(4th Cir. 1997). If, however, § 2255 is inadequate or
ineffective to test the legality of the detention, the prisoner
“may file a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the district
of confinement pursuant to § 2241.” In re Jones, 226 F.3d 328,
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333 (4th Cir. 2000). Because § 2255 is neither inadequate nor
ineffective to test the legality of Shaw’s conviction, we
conclude that the district court correctly determined that Shaw
must bring his claims in a § 2255 petition. See id. at 333-34.
We further find that, instead of dismissing the
petition, the district court should have transferred it pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. § 1631 (2006) to the Northern District of Alabama.
Such a transfer would serve the interest of justice because, if
Shaw were now to file a § 2255 motion in that district,
consideration of his claims likely would be barred by the
applicable one-year limitations period. See 28 U.S.C.
§ 2255(f). *
We accordingly affirm in part, vacate in part, and
remand to the district court so that the action may be
transferred to the Northern District of Alabama. We dispense
with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are
*
The district court performed merely an initial screening
of Shaw’s petition. The court made no substantive ruling on the
merits of the petition and did not recharacterize it “as the
litigant’s first § 2255 motion.” See Castro v. United States,
540 U.S. at 377 (emphasis added). Because there was no such
recharacterization, the district court was not required to give
Shaw the notice that Castro otherwise would require.
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adequately presented in the materials before the court and
argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED IN PART,
VACATED IN PART,
AND REMANDED
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