Watford v. Stevenson

Filed: March 1, 2011
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-6580
(6:09-cv-00924-SB)
PERRY LEE WATFORD,
Petitioner – Appellant,
v.
ROBERT M. STEVENSON, III, Warden,
Respondent – Appellee.
O R D E R
The Court amends its opinion filed February 28, 2011,
as follows:
On the cover sheet, district court information
section, the case number is corrected to read “6:09-cv-00924-
SB.”
For the Court – By Direction
/s/ Patricia S. Connor
Clerk
UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-6580
PERRY LEE WATFORD,
Petitioner – Appellant,
v.
ROBERT M. STEVENSON, III, Warden,
Respondent – Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Greenville. Sol Blatt, Jr., Senior District
Judge. (6:09-cv-00924-SB)
Submitted: February 24, 2011 Decided: February 28, 2011
Before GREGORY, SHEDD, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Perry Lee Watford, Appellant Pro Se. Donald John Zelenka,
Deputy Assistant Attorney General, William Edgar Salter, III,
Assistant Attorney General, Columbia, South Carolina, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Perry Lee Watford 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). 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 Watford 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
2
before the court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
DISMISSED
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