United States v. Roy Lucas

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 11-6431
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
ROY KEITH LUCAS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Columbia. Margaret B. Seymour, District
Judge. (3:05-cr-00760-MBS-5; 3:08-cv-70039-MBS)
Submitted: July 21, 2011 Decided: July 25, 2011
Before NIEMEYER and GREGORY, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON,
Senior Circuit Judge.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Roy Keith Lucas, Appellant Pro Se. Stanley Duane Ragsdale,
Assistant United States Attorney, Columbia, South Carolina, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Roy Keith Lucas seeks to appeal the district court’s
order granting in part his Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion to
reopen, but denying him relief from its prior decision on his 28
U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West Supp. 2011) motion. The order is not
appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a
certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) (2006);
Reid v. Angelone, 369 F.3d 363, 370 (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 Lucas 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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