# United States v. Madison McRae

> Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit · July 13, 2015 · 793 F.3d 392

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9809293

## Case

- **Full name:** UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Madison Duane McRAE, Defendant-Appellant
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
- **Decided:** July 13, 2015
- **Citations:** 793 F.3d 392; 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 12029; 2015 WL 4190665
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Wynn
- **Judges:** Motz, Gregory, Wynn
- **Cited by:** 467 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9809293

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that this court “need 2 USCA4 Appeal: 22-6882 Doc: 8 Filed: 01/20/2023 Pg: 3 of 3 not issue a [certificate of appealability] before determining whether the district court erred in dismissing [a defendant’s] purported Rule 60(b) motion as an unauthorized successive habe…
- holding that no certificate of appealability is required when a Rule 60(b) motion is dismissed as successive because “[n]o one can say right now whether McRae's habeas proceeding was with merit or without based on the district court’s dismissal”
- holding that certificate of appealability is not required to appeal district court’s categorization of Rule 60(b
- holding that no COA is required for the appeal of a dismissal of a Rule 60(b) motion on jurisdictional grounds
- holding that this court “need not issue a 2 [certificate of appealability] before determining whether the district court erred in dismissing [a defendant’s] purported Rule 60(b) motion as an unauthorized successive habeas petition”

## Opinion text

WYNN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
Not wholly unlike the issue we confronted in Blakely v. Wards, 738 F.3d 607, 617 (2013) (en banc), where the “nub of the majority’s and dissent’s disagreement [was] the term dismiss,” today, we disagree about whether dismissals and denials can be conflated for purposes of Certificates of Appealability.. Fittingly to this case, in Blakely our dissenting colleague viewed the word dismiss as having a very narrow and distinct definition “learned in the first year of law school.” Id. at 626 (Motz, J., dissenting). That narrow definition could be overcome neither by “imprecise common usage” nor by “an overbroad dictionary definition.” Id. Applying that sentiment here, there must be a distinction between “actual dismissals” and denials. Id. Otherwise, we run the risk of “improp *402 erly restricting] access to the courts.”- Id. at 624 . With great respect to the dissenting view, I must therefore agree with the majority opinion.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9809293. Public record. Not legal advice.