UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 17-7107
LAMARR BARTHELL DINGLE,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v.
DIRECTOR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,
Respondent - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at
Alexandria. Gerald Bruce Lee, District Judge. (1:16-cv-00023-GBL-IDD)
Submitted: November 21, 2017 Decided: January 12, 2018
Before DUNCAN and WYNN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge.
Remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Lamarr Barthell Dingle, Appellant Pro Se. Leah A. Darron, OFFICE OF THE
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF VIRGINIA, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Lamarr Barthell Dingle seeks to appeal the district court’s order denying relief on
his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (2012) petition. The district court’s order was entered on the docket
on April 28, 2017. The notice of appeal was filed on August 15, 2017, * after the
applicable 30-day appeal period had expired. See 28 U.S.C. § 2107(a) (2012); Fed. R.
App. P. 4(a)(1)(A). However, contemporaneously with the filing of his notice of appeal,
Dingle asserted in a letter to the district court that he did not timely receive notice of the
entry of the April 28 order. We construe this letter as a motion to reopen the appeal
period. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(6)(A). Because the 30-day appeal period is
jurisdictional, Bowles v. Russell, 551 U.S. 205, 214 (2007), we remand the case for the
limited purpose of allowing the district court to determine whether to reopen the time to
file an appeal, pursuant to Rule 4(a)(6). The record, as supplemented, will then be
returned to this court for further proceedings.
REMANDED
*
For the purpose of this appeal, we assume that the date appearing on the notice of
appeal is the earliest date it could have been properly delivered to prison officials for
mailing to the court. Fed. R. App. P. 4(c); Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266 (1988).
2