United States v. William Young

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 15-6374 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. WILLIAM ANTHONY YOUNG, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Columbia. Cameron McGowan Currie, Senior District Judge. (3:02-cr-00216-CMC-1; 3:15-cv-00368-CMC) Submitted: September 29, 2015 Decided: October 6, 2015 Before NIEMEYER, KING, and THACKER, Circuit Judges. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. William Anthony Young, Appellant Pro Se. William Kenneth Witherspoon, Assistant United States Attorney, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: William Anthony Young seeks to appeal the district court’s orders dismissing his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion as unauthorized and successive, and denying Young’s Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) motion to alter or amend that judgment. The orders are 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 Young has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny a certificate of appealability, deny Young’s motions for the appointment of counsel, and dismiss the appeal. We dispense 2 with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED 3