United States v. Hicks ( 2010 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-6563
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
CLARENCE HICKS, a/k/a Bunky,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore. Benson Everett Legg, District Judge.
(1:98-cr-00259-BEL-9; 1:02-cv-02076-BEL)
Submitted: July 22, 2010 Decided: August 3, 2010
Before NIEMEYER, GREGORY, and SHEDD, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Clarence Hicks, Appellant Pro Se. Robert Reeves Harding,
Assistant United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Clarence Hicks seeks to appeal the district court’s
order denying his Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion for
reconsideration of the district court’s order denying relief on
his 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West Supp. 2010) motion. The order is
not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a
certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1) (2006);
Reid v. Angelone, 369 F.3d 363, 369 (4th Cir. 2004).
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) (2006). 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. We have independently reviewed the record and
conclude that Hicks 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
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and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before the court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
DISMISSED
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