Ricky Brannon v. Robert Stevenson, No. 14-7593 (4th Cir. 2015)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 14-7593 RICKY BRANNON, Petitioner – Appellant, v. ROBERT M. STEVENSON, Warden, Defendant - Appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Beaufort. Richard Mark Gergel, District Judge. (9:13-cv-01792-RMG) Submitted: February 12, 2015 Decided: February 19, 2015 Before MOTZ, WYNN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Ricky Brannon, Appellant Pro Se. Kaycie Smith Timmons, Assistant United States Attorney, Donald John Zelenka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Ricky Brannon seeks to appeal the district court’s order accepting the recommendation of the magistrate judge and denying relief on his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (2012) petition. The order is not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate (2012). of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A) 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) (2012). 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 constitutional 529 U.S. by that the claims 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 petition 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 Brannon has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. We dispense with oral argument 2 because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED 3
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