UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 08-8524
JOHNNY NEALY,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v.
WARDEN, Lieber Correctional Institution,
Respondent – Appellee,
and
Jon Ozmint, South Carolina Department of Corrections; STATE
OF SOUTH CAROLINA,
Respondents.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Columbia. G. Ross Anderson, Jr., Senior
District Judge. (3:08-cv-00871-GRA)
Submitted: May 28, 2009 Decided: June 4, 2009
Before WILKINSON, KING, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Johnny Nealy, 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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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:
Johnny Nealy 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, 484 (2000); Rose v. Lee, 252 F.3d 676, 683-84 (4th
Cir. 2001). We have independently reviewed the record and
conclude that Nealy has not made the requisite showing.
Accordingly, we deny his motion for 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
2