UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 19-6113
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
DAVID HILL,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at
Alexandria. Claude M. Hilton, Senior District Judge. (1:01-cr-00191-CMH-1)
Submitted: April 18, 2019 Decided: April 23, 2019
Before WILKINSON, MOTZ, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
David Hill, Appellant Pro Se.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
David Hill seeks to appeal the district court’s order denying Hill’s authorized,
successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion in which Hill asserted Johnson 1 challenges to
his three 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (2012) convictions and his career offender designation, and
the court’s subsequent order denying Hill’s Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) motion to alter or amend
judgment. In its initial order, the district court concluded that the Johnson claim was
untimely as to Hill’s § 924(c) convictions and that the Supreme Court’s decision in
Beckles v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 886 (2017), foreclosed Hill’s Johnson challenge to
his career offender designation. The court further denied Hill’s attempts to amend his
successive § 2255 motion to raise a Brady 2 claim, which was unrelated to Johnson. The
court subsequently denied Hill’s motion to alter or amend judgment, which focused
exclusively on the denial of Hill’s request to amend the § 2255 motion to add the
unrelated Brady claim.
The district court’s orders are not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues
a certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) (2012). A certificate of
appealability will not issue absent “a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional
right.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2) (2012). When the district court denies relief on the
merits, a prisoner satisfies this standard by demonstrating that reasonable jurists would
find that the district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims is debatable or wrong.
1
Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015).
2
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963).
2
Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000); see Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322,
336-38 (2003). When the district court denies relief on procedural grounds, the prisoner
must demonstrate both that the dispositive procedural ruling is debatable, and that the
petition states a debatable claim of the denial of a constitutional right. Slack, 529 U.S. at
484-85.
We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Hill has not made
the requisite showing. Specifically, Hill’s failure to contest in his informal brief the
district court’s dispositive ruling related to Johnson’s applicability in the § 924(c) context
forecloses any challenge to that ruling. See 4th Cir. R. 34(b); Jackson v. Lightsey, 775
F.3d 170, 177 (4th Cir. 2014) (“The informal brief is an important document; under
Fourth Circuit rules, our review is limited to issues preserved in that brief.”). Nor has
Hill demonstrated that the court’s refusal to allow the amendment to raise an unrelated
Brady claim was debatable. Accordingly, we deny a certificate of appealability, deny
Hill’s motions to appoint counsel, for transcripts at Government expense, and to unseal
the records in another criminal action, and dismiss this appeal. We dispense with oral
argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the
materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
DISMISSED
3