Todd Smith v. Warden Dunlap , 675 F. App'x 344 ( 2017 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 16-7267
TODD SMITH,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v.
WARDEN DUNLAP,
Respondent - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Rock Hill. David C. Norton, District Judge.
(0:15-cv-02538-DCN)
Submitted: January 31, 2017 Decided: February 3, 2017
Before WILKINSON, KEENAN, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Todd Smith, Appellant Pro Se. Donald John Zelenka, Senior
Assistant Attorney General, Melody Jane Brown, William Edgar
Salter, III, Assistant Attorney General, Columbia, South
Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Todd Smith seeks to appeal the district court’s order
accepting the recommendation of the magistrate judge and denying
relief on his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (2012) petition. The order is
not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a
certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A) (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 petition states a debatable
claim of the denial of a constitutional right. Slack, 529 U.S.
at 484-85.
We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that
Smith has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny
a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. We
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
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contentions are adequately presented in the materials before
this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
DISMISSED
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