Keven Morgan v. State of North Carolina, No. 20-7509 (4th Cir. 2022)

Annotate this Case

Download PDF

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 20-7509 KEVEN A. MORGAN, Petitioner - Appellant, v. STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, Respondent - Appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Richard E. Myers, II, Chief District Judge. (5:19-hc-02153-M) Submitted: February 25, 2022 Decided: April 20, 2022 Before WILKINSON, MOTZ, and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Keven A. Morgan, Appellant Pro Se. Jonathan Porter Babb, Sr., Special Deputy Attorney General, NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Keven A. Morgan seeks to appeal the district court’s order denying relief on his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition. The order is not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability. See 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). When the district court denies relief on the merits, a prisoner satisfies this standard by demonstrating that reasonable jurists could find the district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims debatable or wrong. See Buck v. Davis, 137 S. Ct. 759, 773-74 (2017). 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. Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S. 134, 140-41 (2012) (citing Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000)). We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Morgan has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny his motion for a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED 2

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.