United States v. Daniel Suggs ( 2020 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 20-6079
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
DANIEL LEE SUGGS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Florence.
R. Bryan Harwell, Chief District Judge. (4:06-cr-00474-RBH-2; 4:16-cv-01545-RBH)
Submitted: April 16, 2020 Decided: April 21, 2020
Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, and WYNN and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Daniel Lee Suggs, Appellant Pro Se.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Daniel Lee Suggs seeks to appeal the district court’s orders denying relief on his 28
U.S.C. § 2255 (2018) motion and denying his motion for reconsideration. The order is not
appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability. See 28
U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) (2018). 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) (2018).
When the district court denies relief on the merits, a prisoner satisfies this standard by
demonstrating that reasonable jurists would 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 motion 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 Suggs has not made
the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny Suggs’s 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
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