UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 21-7300
JONATHAN EUGENE BRUNSON,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v.
GEORGE SOLOMON,
Respondent - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at
Raleigh. Louise W. Flanagan, District Judge. (5:14-hc-02009-FL)
Submitted: February 17, 2022 Decided: February 23, 2022
Before AGEE and RUSHING, Circuit Judges, and SHEDD, Senior Circuit Judge.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Jonathan Eugene Brunson, Appellant Pro Se. Jonathan Porter Babb, Sr., Special Deputy
Attorney General, NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Raleigh, North
Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Jonathan Eugene Brunson seeks to appeal the district court’s orders denying his Fed.
R. Civ. P. 60(b) motions for relief from the district court’s prior order denying relief on his
28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition. The orders are not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge
issues a certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A). See generally United
States v. McRae, 793 F.3d 392, 400 & n.7 (4th Cir. 2015). 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 could find the district court’s
assessment of the constitutional claims debatable or wrong. See Buck v. Davis, 137 S. Ct.
759, 773-74 (2017). When the district court denies relief on procedural grounds, the
prisoner must demonstrate both that the dispositive procedural ruling is debatable and that
the petition states a debatable claim of the denial of a constitutional right. Gonzalez v.
Thaler, 565 U.S. 134, 140-41 (2012) (citing Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000)).
We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Brunson 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 presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the
decisional process.
DISMISSED
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