US v. Joseph McConnell, No. 13-7532 (4th Cir. 2013)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 13-7532 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. JOSEPH TROY MCCONNELL, Defendant -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-00548-CMC-15; 3:10-cv-70314-CMC) Submitted: December 17, 2013 Decided: December 20, 2013 Before KING, GREGORY, and WYNN, Circuit Judges. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Joseph Troy McConnell, Appellant Pro Se. Beth Drake, Mark C. Moore, Jane Barrett Taylor, Assistant United States Attorneys, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Joseph court s McConnell treating order Troy his seeks motion to to appeal district the reopen the criminal judgment against him as a successive 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West Supp. 2013) motion, and dismissing it because McConnell failed to obtain prefiling authorization from this court. not appealable unless a circuit certificate of appealability. A certificate of justice or The order is judge issues a 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) (2006). appealability will not issue absent a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2) (2006). relief on the demonstrating district merits, that court s debatable or a When the district court denies prisoner reasonable assessment wrong. Slack satisfies jurists this would of the v. McDaniel, standard find U.S. that the claims constitutional 529 by is 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 claim of the denial of a constitutional right. a debatable Slack, 529 U.S. at 484-85. We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that McConnell has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. 2 Additionally, McConnell seeks authorization to file a successive § 2255 motion in his informal brief. obtain authorization to file a successive In order to § 2255 motion, however, a prisoner must assert claims based on either: (1) newly discovered evidence that . . . would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable factfinder would have found the movant guilty of the offense; or (2) a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable. 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255(h) (West Supp. 2013). not satisfy either of these McConnell s claims do criteria. Therefore, we deny authorization to file a successive § 2255 motion. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal before contentions this court are adequately and argument presented would not in aid the the materials decisional process. DISMISSED 3
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