Summary
The United States District Court for the District of Delaware grants James W. Riley permission to file a motion to reopen his prior federal habeas proceedings. The court dismisses the Rule 60(b)(4) motion without prejudice as an unauthorized successive habeas petition because it challenges the underlying state-court judgment without prior authorization from the Third Circuit. Alternatively, the court denies the motion as untimely and declines to issue a certificate of appealability.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Riley's Rule 60(b)(4) motion challenging the validity of his underlying state-court judgment constituted an unauthorized second or successive habeas petition.
- Whether, to the extent the motion challenged the manner in which the prior federal habeas judgment was procured rather than the underlying conviction, it was timely under Rule 60(c)(1).
- Whether the district court should issue a certificate of appealability.
Holdings
- A Rule 60(b) motion that attacks the underlying state-court conviction or asserts a new ground for federal habeas relief is treated as a second or successive habeas petition and cannot proceed in the district court without prior authorization from the appropriate court of appeals.
- Even if construed as a proper Rule 60 motion attacking the manner in which the earlier federal habeas judgment was procured, the motion was untimely because it was not filed within a reasonable time.
- The court declined to issue a certificate of appealability because Riley failed to satisfy the standards in 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2).
Key quotations
“When a Rule 60(b) motion “seeks to add a new ground for relief’ or “attacks the federal court’s previous resolution of a claim on the merits,” the motion is barred as an unauthorized second or successive habeas petition.” (at 1)
“a prisoner previously denied federal habeas relief may not use a Rule 60(b) motion to assert a federal constitutional challenge to his state conviction or sentence because such a motion is in substance a second or ‘successive habeas petition merely masquerading as a Rule 60(b) motion’” (at 2)
Factual background
Riley was convicted and sentenced in Delaware state court following a 2003 retrial of a case originally tried in 1982. He filed a federal habeas petition in 2004, which the district court denied as meritless in 2007. In December 2025, more than eighteen years after that denial, he sought to reopen the habeas proceedings under Rule 60(b)(4), arguing that the state court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because his conviction involved conduct outside the scope of Delaware's felony-murder statute.
Procedural history
Riley filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition in 2004 challenging his Delaware state-court judgment arising from a 2003 retrial of a case originally tried in 1982. The district court denied that petition as meritless on June 19, 2007. Riley subsequently filed Rule 60 motions in 2018 and 2023, both of which were dismissed as unauthorized successive habeas petitions, and the Third Circuit denied certificates of appealability in each matter. In December 2025, Riley filed the present motion for permission to file another Rule 60 motion; the district court granted permission to file but dismissed the underlying motion without prejudice and alternatively denied it as untimely.