US v. Deshawn Anderson, No. 15-6670 (4th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 15-6670 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. DESHAWN ANDERSON, a/k/a Buddha; MARVIN WAYNE WILLIAMS, JR., a/k/a Lil Wayne, Defendants - Appellants. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Alexandria. James C. Cacheris, Senior District Judge. (1:09-cr-00414-JCC-2; 1:14-cv-00364-JCC; 1:09cr-00414-JCC-3; 1:14-cv-00060-JCC) Submitted: September 30, 2015 Decided: December 29, 2015 Before MOTZ, DIAZ, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Deshawn Anderson, Marvin Wayne Williams, Jr., Appellants Pro Se. Michael Phillip Ben’Ary, Assistant United States Attorney, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Deshawn Anderson and Marvin Wayne Williams, Jr., (Appellants) seek to appeal the district court’s orders denying relief on their 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motions. not appealable unless a circuit certificate of appealability. A certificate of justice or The orders are judge issues a 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) (2012). 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 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. Appellants complain that the district court denied their postjudgment motion to amend their action to include a claim pursuant to Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012). The Miller claim was raised more than one year after Appellants’ convictions became final. See United States v. Segers, 271 F.3d 2 181, 186 (4th Cir. 2001) (conviction becomes final once Supreme Court denies petition for certiorari). As the Miller claim does not arise from the same “conduct, transaction, or occurrence” in the original pleading, it does not relate back to the date of the original pleading. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(c)(1)(B); United States v. Pittman, 209 F.3d 314, 318 (4th Cir. 2000) (holding new claim must be of same “time and type” as original claims). Because leave to amend may be denied when the proposed claim would be time-barred, Pittman, 209 F.3d at 317, we conclude that any error by the district court was harmless, as the motion would have been denied under Rule 15(c). * We have independently that Appellants have not reviewed made the the records requisite issuance of a certificate of appealability. and conclude showing for Accordingly, we deny a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. dispense with contentions are oral arguments adequately because presented in the the the facts and materials We legal before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED * This Court has held that the rule in Miller is not retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review. Johnson v. Ponton, 780 F.3d 219, 224-26 (4th Cir. 2015). Thus, the delayed commencement date for the statute of limitations in § 2255(f)(3) is not applicable. 3
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
