United States of America v. Juan Soto

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 23-6832
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
JUAN SOTO,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at
Raleigh. James C. Dever III, District Judge. (5:15-cr-00071-D-2)
Submitted: October 19, 2023 Decided: October 24, 2023
Before KING and WYNN, Circuit Judges, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit Judge.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Juan Soto, Appellant Pro Se.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Juan Soto seeks to appeal the district court’s order denying his Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)
motion seeking relief from the district court’s criminal judgment. Soto’s motion was, in
substance, a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion. The district court’s denial of relief on this motion
is not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability. See 28
U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B). 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). When the district
court denies relief on the merits, a prisoner satisfies this standard by demonstrating that
reasonable jurists could find the district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims
debatable or wrong. See Buck v. Davis, 580 U.S. 100, 115-17 (2017). When the district
court denies relief on procedural grounds, the prisoner must demonstrate both that the
dispositive procedural ruling is debatable and that the motion states a debatable claim of
the denial of a constitutional right. Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 134, 140-41 (2012) (citing
Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000)).
We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Soto has not made
the requisite showing. In his Rule 60(b) motion, the claim Soto raised challenged the
validity of one of his convictions, and, thus, the motion should have been construed as a
successive § 2255 motion.∗ See Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524, 531-32 (2005); United
States v. McRae, 793 F.3d 392, 397-99 (4th Cir. 2015). Absent prefiling authorization
∗ The district court denied relief on Soto’s initial § 2255 motion on the merits in
2019.

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from this court, the district court lacked jurisdiction to entertain Soto’s successive § 2255
motion. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 2244(b)(3), 2255(h). Accordingly, we deny a certificate of
appealability and dismiss the 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

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