Edward Littles, Jr. v. State of South Carolina

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 09-6629
EDWARD LITTLES, JR.,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v.
STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA,
Respondent - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Beaufort. Cameron McGowan Currie, District
Judge. (9:07-cv-03760-CMC)
Submitted: August 26, 2009 Decided: September 2, 2009
Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, and GREGORY and SHEDD, Circuit
Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Edward Littles, Jr., Appellant Pro Se. Donald John Zelenka,
Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Melody Jane Brown, Samuel
Creighton Waters, Assistant Attorneys General, Columbia, South
Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Edward Littles, Jr., seeks to appeal the district
court’s order accepting the recommendation of the magistrate
judge and denying relief on his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (2006)
petition. We dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction
because the notice of appeal was not timely filed.
Parties are accorded thirty days after the entry of
the district court’s final judgment or order to note an appeal,
Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A), unless the district court extends
the appeal period under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5), or reopens the
appeal period under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(6). See 28 U.S.C.
§ 2107 (2006). “[T]he timely filing of a notice of appeal in a
civil case is a jurisdictional requirement.” Bowles v. Russell,
551 U.S. 205, 214 (2007).
The district court’s order was entered on the docket
on February 27, 2009. The notice of appeal was filed on April
1, 2009.* Because Littles failed to file a timely notice of
appeal or to obtain an extension or reopening of the appeal
period, we dismiss the appeal. We deny Littles’s motion for a
certificate of appealability as moot. We dispense with oral
* 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

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3
argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately
presented in the materials before the court and argument would
not aid the decisional process.
DISMISSED

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