UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 08-7463
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
RUSSELL SHIFLETT,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore. J. Frederick Motz, District Judge.
(1:06-cr-00252-JFM-1; 1:08-cv-00499-JFM)
Submitted: January 29, 2009 Decided: February 19, 2009
Before WILKINSON, KING, and SHEDD, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Russell Shiflett, Appellant Pro Se. Kwame Jangha Manley,
Assistant United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Russell Shiflett seeks to appeal the district court’s
order denying relief on his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2000) motion. The
order is not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues
a certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1) (2000).
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) (2000). 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, 484 (2000); Rose v. Lee, 252 F.3d 676, 683-84 (4th
Cir. 2001). We have independently reviewed the record and
conclude that Shiflett 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
*
The district court rejected Shiflett’s ineffective
assistance of counsel claims upon the reasoning that they could
not be litigated in a § 2255 proceeding because they had been
raised on direct appeal and denied. While it is correct that
Shiflett raised these claims on direct appeal, we explicitly
declined to consider them, noting that ineffective assistance of
counsel claims should ordinarily be pursued in post-conviction
proceedings. Nevertheless, we find it unnecessary to remand
(Continued)
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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
these claims to the district court for plenary consideration as
our review of the record leaves us with no doubt that Shiflett’s
contentions that his trial attorney was ineffective are
insubstantial.
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