United States of America v. Sean Echols

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 16-7034
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
SEAN ECHOLS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Columbia. Joseph F. Anderson, Jr., Senior
District Judge. (3:13-cr-00211-JFA-1)
Submitted: November 22, 2016 Decided: November 28, 2016
Before DIAZ and THACKER, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Sean Echols, Appellant Pro Se. Stacey Denise Haynes, William
Kenneth Witherspoon, Assistant United States Attorneys,
Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

-- 1 of 4 --

2
PER CURIAM:
Sean Echols, a federal inmate who pled guilty to conspiracy
to use facilities in interstate commerce in furtherance of a
murder-for-hire scheme, appeals from the district court’s order
denying his motion for reconsideration of its prior order
denying his request for copies of discovery material in his
closed criminal case.1 Echols asserted that such material2 was
necessary to enable him to present claims challenging his
240-month prison term. We affirm the district court’s denial of
this request.
Copies of transcripts and court records may be provided to
an indigent litigant at government expense3 upon a showing by the
litigant of a particularized need for the documents.
See Jones v. Superintendent, Va. State Farm, 460 F.2d 150,
1 Echols was sentenced to 240 months’ imprisonment for his
conviction in August 2014. The district court denied his
28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion challenging his conviction in
April 2015. Echols’s original request for discovery material
was filed in June 2016, and his motion for reconsideration was
filed in July 2016.
2 Echols sought unspecified “discovery material” and
“Brady[ v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963),]” material of an
unspecified nature. The motion for reconsideration also
references summaries of witness statements that Echols claims
are contained within the discovery material and claimed that
Echols did not receive a copy of his plea agreement.
3 We assume, because Echols did not tender payment for
copying costs, that any request for court records was at
government expense.

-- 2 of 4 --

3
152-53 (4th Cir. 1972). Such a litigant, however, is not
entitled to free copies “merely to comb the record in the hope
of discovering some flaw.” United States v. Glass, 317 F.2d
200, 202 (4th Cir. 1963). To the extent that the discovery
material Echols sought was contained in court records, he did
not establish the requisite need for such records under Jones.
Echols failed to establish why he cannot, without a copy of the
material he sought, set forth any claims he wishes to raise that
challenge his 240-month prison term.
To the extent that Echols sought post-conviction discovery
to support efforts to obtain relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a
habeas movant, “unlike the usual civil litigant in federal
court, is not entitled to discovery as a matter of ordinary
course.” Bracy v. Gramley, 520 U.S. 899, 904 (1997). Thus,
discovery is granted only for good cause. Rule 6, Rules
Governing § 2255 Proceedings. A habeas movant must make
specific allegations establishing reason to believe that, if the
facts are fully developed, he is entitled to relief. United
States v. Roane, 378 F.3d 382, 403 (4th Cir. 2004). We conclude
after review of the record that Echols has not established good
cause for post-conviction discovery.
We therefore affirm the district court’s denial of Echols’s
motion. United States v. Echols, No. 3:13-cr-00211-JFA-1
(D.S.C. July 14, 2016). We dispense with oral argument because

-- 3 of 4 --

4
the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the
materials before this court and argument would not aid the
decisional process.
AFFIRMED

-- 4 of 4 --