Trevee Gethers v. Bryan Stirling ( 2021 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 20-6850
TREVEE GETHERS,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v.
BRYAN STIRLING, Commissioner, South Carolina Department of Corrections;
RANDALL WILLIAMS, Warden of Lieber Correctional Institution,
Respondents - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Aiken.
Sherri A. Lydon, District Judge. (1:19-cv-01088-SAL)
Submitted: March 18, 2021 Decided: March 22, 2021
Before WILKINSON and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges, and SHEDD, Senior Circuit
Judge.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Elizabeth Anne Franklin-Best, ELIZABETH FRANKLIN-BEST, P.C., Columbia, South
Carolina, for Appellant.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Trevee Gethers, a South Carolina inmate, seeks to appeal the district court’s order
accepting the recommendation of the magistrate judge and denying relief on Gethers’
counseled 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 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 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 Gethers has not made
the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny 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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