UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-8094
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
MAURICE PICKENS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Florence. Terry L. Wooten, Chief District
Judge. (4:04-cr-00477-TLW-1)
Submitted: April 18, 2013 Decided: April 22, 2013
Before WILKINSON, GREGORY, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Maurice Pickens, Appellant Pro Se. Alfred William Walker Bethea,
Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, Florence, South Carolina,
for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Maurice Pickens seeks to appeal the district court’s
order denying his Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion for
reconsideration of the district court’s order denying relief on
his 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West Supp. 2012) 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 Pickens 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
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