United States v. Deshaun Dennis

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 10-7254 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff – Appellee, v. DESHAUN DENNIS, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. Richard D. Bennett, District Judge. (1:10-cv-00052-RDB; 1:08-cr-00012-RDB-2) Submitted: October 31, 2011 Decided: November 15, 2011 Before WILKINSON, AGEE, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Deshaun Dennis, Appellant Pro Se. Harry Mason Gruber, Kwame Jangha Manley, Assistant United States Attorneys, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Deshaun Dennis seeks to appeal the district court’s order denying relief on his 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West Supp. 2011) 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) (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 Dennis 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 * Although the district court did not expressly address Dennis’s claim under the Speedy Trial Act, we have reviewed it and find it to be without merit. 2 and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED 3