Blevins v. Maynor et al

Filing 6

ORDER denying 5 Declaration and Objections. Signed by Chief Judge Martin Reidinger on 8/28/2024. (Pro se litigant served by US Mail.)(smm)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA
STATESVILLE DIVISION
5:24-cv-00153-MR
DENVER W. BLEVINS,

)
)
Petitioner,
)
)
vs.
)
)
)
TIMOTHY MAYNOR, et al.,
)
)
Respondents. )
___________________________ )

ORDER

THIS MATTER is before the Court on Petitioner’s “Declaration And
Objections To The Order Entered on July 31, 2024 by the U.S. District Court
Judge Martin Reidinger Dismissing Petitioners § 2241 Petition” [Doc. 5
(errors uncorrected)], which the Court construes as a motion to alter or
amend the judgment pursuant to Rule 59(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure.
Petitioner Denver W. Blevins (“Petitioner”) is a prisoner of the State of
North Carolina, currently incarcerated at Catawba Correctional Center
(CCC) in Newton, North Carolina. He was sentenced in the Superior Court
of Randolph County, North Carolina, in 1994 to a life sentence on conviction
for first-degree rape, burglary, and kidnapping. He has been incarcerated
since that time. [See Doc. 1 at 1; North Carolina Department of Adult

Correction (NCDAC) Offender Public Information website].
In 1998, Petitioner began challenging his state court conviction in
federal court, beginning with a petition for relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254.
[Civil Case No. 1:98-cv-00383-NCT (M.D.N.C.), Doc. 2]. After numerous
subsequent attempts to revisit his 1994 convictions and/or subsequent
parole eligibility calculations, on June 24, 2024, Petitioner filed another
petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241.1 [Doc. 1]. Noting that Petitioner
“rehashes the same issues and arguments he raised in his previous
dismissed actions, including the previous such petition that was transferred
to this Court,” the Court denied and dismissed it “for the same reasons as
his previous petition.”2 [Doc. 3 at 7].
Now pending is Petitioner’s motion to alter or amend judgment under
Rule 59(e), in which he objects to the Court’s Order dismissing this most
recent § 2241 petition. [Doc. 5]. As grounds, Petitioner claims that the Court
violated his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights that “guarantee[ ] the

Rather than again recite the relevant history and procedural background, the Court
herein incorporates by reference the initial review Order about which Petitioner now
complains. [See Doc. 3].
1

The Court also admonished Petitioner that, to the extent he seeks relief under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983, as a “three-striker” under § 1915(g), he must pay the full filing fee, and to the
extent he seeks relief under § 2254, he failed to obtain authorization from the Fourth
Circuit for a second or successive habeas petition. [Doc. 3 at 7].
2

2

petitioner access to the courts, due process, and equal protection of the law”
and rulings in an Eleventh Circuit case,3 by dismissing his petition “without
reviewing or commenting on the issues and claims set forth [therein].” [Id. at
1-2]. Petitioner then proceeds to repeat arguments from the dismissed
petition. [See id. at 3-7]. For relief, Petitioner asks the Court to “do a
complete review” of the petition and to order that “the Expost Facto Violations
be ordered stoped and corrected” and that “the False evidence and Falsified
records that is being used to calculate petitioners parole date, and deny
petitioner parole be ordered removed and expunged from petitioner prison
record.” [Id. at 8 (errors uncorrected)].
Regarding motions to alter or amend a judgment under Rule 59(e), the
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has stated:
A district court has the discretion to grant a Rule
59(e) motion only in very narrow circumstances: “(1)
to accommodate an intervening change in controlling
law; (2) to account for new evidence not available at
trial; or (3) to correct a clear error of law or to prevent
manifest injustice.”
Hill v. Braxton, 277 F.3d 701, 708 (4th Cir. 2002) (quoting Collison v. Int’l
Chem. Workers Union, 34 F.3d 233, 236 (4th Cir. 1994)). Furthermore, “Rule
59(e) motions may not be used to make arguments that could have been

3

Fernandez v. United States, 941 F.2d 1488 (11th Cir. 1991).
3

made before the judgment was entered.” Id. Indeed, the circumstances
under which a Rule 59(e) motion may be granted are so limited that
“[c]ommentators observe ‘because of the narrow purposes for which they are
intended, Rule 59(e) motions typically are denied.’” Woodrum v. Thomas
Mem’l Hosp. Found., Inc., 186 F.R.D. 350, 351 (S.D. W. Va. 1999) (quoting
11 Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice
and Procedure § 2810.1 (2d ed. 1995)).
Petitioner has not shown the existence of the limited circumstances
under which a Rule 59(e) motion may be granted. That is, Petitioner’s motion
does not present evidence that was unavailable when he filed his Petition,
nor does his motion stem from an intervening change in the applicable law.
Furthermore, Petitioner has not shown that a clear error of law has been
made, or that failure to grant the motion would result in manifest injustice to
him.

See Hill, 277 F.3d at 708.

Rather, Petitioner makes the same

arguments he has now made several times before this and other courts. The
Court is not obliged to expend its resources expressly analyzing and
addressing Petitioner’s same claims and arguments ad infinitum.
The Court will, therefore, deny Plaintiff’s motion.

4

ORDER
IT IS, THEREFORE, ORDERED that Plaintiff’s “Declaration And
Objections To The Order Entered on July 31, 2024 by the U.S. District Court
Judge Martin Reidinger Dismissing Petitioners § 2241 Petition” [Doc. 5] is
DENIED.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Signed: August 28, 2024

5