United States v. Salazar-Moreno

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 10-7054 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff – Appellee, v. JUAN SALAZAR-MORENO, Defendant – Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Florence. R. Bryan Harwell, District Judge. (4:07-cr-00648-RBH-1; 4:09-cv-70025-RBH) Submitted: January 13, 2011 Decided: January 19, 2011 Before MOTZ, KING, and WYNN, Circuit Judges. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Juan Salazar-Moreno, Appellant Pro Se. Arthur Bradley Parham, Assistant United States Attorney, Florence, South Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Juan Salazar-Moreno seeks to appeal the district court’s order denying relief on his 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West Supp. 2010) motion and has moved for a certificate of appealability. The district court’s 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 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 Salazar-Moreno has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny Salazar-Moreno’s motion for a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately 2 presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED 3