United States v. Deshawn Anderson , 627 F. App'x 238 ( 2015 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 15-6670
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
DESHAWN ANDERSON, a/k/a Buddha; MARVIN WAYNE WILLIAMS, JR.,
a/k/a Lil Wayne,
Defendants - Appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Alexandria. James C. Cacheris, Senior
District Judge. (1:09-cr-00414-JCC-2; 1:14-cv-00364-JCC; 1:09-
cr-00414-JCC-3; 1:14-cv-00060-JCC)
Submitted: September 30, 2015 Decided: December 29, 2015
Before MOTZ, DIAZ, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Deshawn Anderson, Marvin Wayne Williams, Jr., Appellants Pro Se.
Michael Phillip Ben’Ary, Assistant United States Attorney,
Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Deshawn Anderson and Marvin Wayne Williams, Jr.,
(Appellants) seek to appeal the district court’s orders denying
relief on their 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motions. The orders are
not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a
certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) (2012).
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) (2012). When the district court denies
relief on the merits, a prisoner satisfies this standard by
demonstrating that reasonable jurists would find that the
district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims is
debatable or wrong. Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484
(2000); see Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336-38 (2003).
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. Slack, 529 U.S.
at 484-85.
Appellants complain that the district court denied their
postjudgment motion to amend their action to include a claim
pursuant to Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012). The
Miller claim was raised more than one year after Appellants’
convictions became final. See United States v. Segers, 271 F.3d
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181, 186 (4th Cir. 2001) (conviction becomes final once Supreme
Court denies petition for certiorari). As the Miller claim does
not arise from the same “conduct, transaction, or occurrence” in
the original pleading, it does not relate back to the date of
the original pleading. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(c)(1)(B); United
States v. Pittman, 209 F.3d 314, 318 (4th Cir. 2000) (holding
new claim must be of same “time and type” as original claims).
Because leave to amend may be denied when the proposed claim
would be time-barred, Pittman, 209 F.3d at 317, we conclude that
any error by the district court was harmless, as the motion
would have been denied under Rule 15(c). *
We have independently reviewed the records and conclude
that Appellants have not made the requisite showing for the
issuance of a certificate of appealability. Accordingly, we
deny a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. We
dispense with oral arguments because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before
this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
DISMISSED
*This Court has held that the rule in Miller is not
retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review. Johnson
v. Ponton, 780 F.3d 219, 224-26 (4th Cir. 2015). Thus, the
delayed commencement date for the statute of limitations in
§ 2255(f)(3) is not applicable.
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