United States v. Lorenzo Hall

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 14-6083 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. LORENZO HALL, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. J. Frederick Motz, Senior District Judge. (1:02-cr—00293-JFM-1; 1:13-cv-03208-JFM) Submitted: April 8, 2014 Decided: April 16, 2014 Before NIEMEYER, KING, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Lorenzo Hall, Appellant Pro Se. Charles Joseph Peters, Sr., OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Lorenzo Hall seeks to appeal the district court’s order denying his Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) 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) (2012). 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) (2012). 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 Hall has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny Hall’s 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 2 materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED 3