Mitchell v. Rushton

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 07-6552
MEKIEL MITCHELL,
Petitioner – Appellant,
v.
COLIE RUSHTON, Warden of McCormick Correctional Institution;
HENRY MCMASTER, Attorney General of the State of South
Carolina,
Respondents - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Columbia. Terry L. Wooten, District Judge.
(3:06-cv-00054-TLW)
Submitted: February 11, 2009 Decided: February 24, 2009
Before MICHAEL, TRAXLER, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
John Dewey Elliott; John Christopher Mills, Columbia, South
Carolina, for Appellant. Donald John Zelenka, Deputy Assistant
Attorney General, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Mekiel Mitchell 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 (2006) petition. The
order is not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues
a certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1) (2006).
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). A prisoner satisfies this
standard by demonstrating that reasonable jurists would find
that any assessment of the constitutional claims by the district
court is debatable or wrong and that any dispositive procedural
ruling by the district court is likewise debatable. Miller-El
v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336-38 (2003); Slack v. McDaniel,
529 U.S. 473, 483-84 (2000); Rose v. Lee, 252 F.3d 676, 683-84
(4th Cir. 2001). We have independently reviewed the record and
conclude that Mitchell 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 contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before the court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
DISMISSED
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