United States v. John Anderson, Jr.

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 11-6930 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. JOHN DAVID ANDERSON, JR., Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. Benson Everett Legg, District Judge. (1:00-cr-00033-BEL-1; 1:07-cv-00234-BEL) Submitted: November 8, 2011 Decided: December 8, 2011 Before NIEMEYER, MOTZ, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. John David Anderson, Jr., Appellant Pro Se. Martin Joseph Clarke, Assistant United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: John David Anderson, Jr., seeks to appeal the district court’s orders denying his motion for reconsideration and his Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(3), (6) motion for relief from the district court’s orders denying relief on his 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West Supp. 2011) motion. The orders are 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). 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 contentions are adequately 2 presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED 3