Todd Smith v. Warden Dunlap, No. 16-7267 (4th Cir. 2017)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 16-7267 TODD SMITH, Petitioner - Appellant, v. WARDEN DUNLAP, Respondent - Appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Rock Hill. David C. Norton, District Judge. (0:15-cv-02538-DCN) Submitted: January 31, 2017 Decided: February 3, 2017 Before WILKINSON, KEENAN, and THACKER, Circuit Judges. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Todd Smith, Appellant Pro Se. Donald John Zelenka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Melody Jane Brown, William Edgar Salter, III, Assistant Attorney General, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Todd Smith 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. 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)(A) (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. 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 Smith 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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