United States v. Samuel Anderson

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 14-6923 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. SAMUEL LARELL ANDERSON, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Rock Hill. Cameron McGowan Currie, Senior District Judge. (0:04-cr-00353-CMC-3; 0:14-cv-02242-CMC) Submitted: September 25, 2014 Decided: September 30, 2014 Before WILKINSON and AGEE, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior Circuit Judge. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Samuel Larell Anderson, Appellant Pro Se. Beth Drake, Jimmie Ewing, William Kenneth Witherspoon, Assistant United States Attorneys, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Samuel Larell Anderson seeks to appeal the district court’s order dismissing his successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion because Anderson failed to obtain prefiling authorization from this court. 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)(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 Anderson 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 2 contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED 3