Joseph Sparks, III v. Harold Clarke, No. 15-6239 (4th Cir. 2015)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 15-6239 JOSEPH H. SPARKS, III, Petitioner - Appellant, v. HAROLD W. CLARKE, Respondent - Appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Arenda L. Wright Allen, District Judge. (2:14-cv-00440-AWA-DEM) Submitted: July 31, 2015 Decided: August 18, 2015 Before WYNN and DIAZ, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior Circuit Judge. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Bradley Rittenhouse Haywood, SHELDON, FLOOD & HAYWOOD, PLC, Fairfax, Virginia, for Appellant. Benjamin Hyman Katz, Assistant Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Joseph H. Sparks, III, 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. satisfies jurists would of the v. McDaniel, Slack this 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 Sparks has not made the requisite showing. a certificate dispense with of appealability oral argument and dismiss because 2 Accordingly, we deny the the appeal. facts and We 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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