Case ID: f-appx_137/html/0535-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Edward Lee BROOKS, Petitioner—Appellant, v. Raymond SMITH, Respondent—Appellee.
    No. 05-6117.
    United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
    Submitted May 13, 2005.
    Decided May 23, 2005.
    Edward Lee Brooks, Appellant pro se. Clarence Joe DelForge, III, North Carolina Department of Justice, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.
    Before WILKINSON, KING, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.
    Dismissed by unpublished PER CURIAM opinion.
    Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See Local Rule 36(c).
   PER CURIAM.

Edward Lee Brooks, a state prisoner, seeks to appeal the magistrate judge’s order denying his motion under Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b)(6) for relief from the magistrate judge’s previous denial of Brooks’s petition filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (2000). The order is not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1) (2000); Reid v. Angelone, 369 F.3d 363, 370 (4th Cir.2004). 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) (2000). A prisoner satisfies this standard by demonstrating that reasonable jurists would find that his constitutional claims are debatable and that any dispositive procedural rulings by the district court are also debatable or wrong. See Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336, 123 S.Ct. 1029, 154 L.Ed.2d 931 (2003); Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484, 120 S.Ct. 1595, 146 L.Ed.2d 542 (2000); Rose v. Lee, 252 F.3d 676, 683 (4th Cir.2001). We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Brooks has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal.

Additionally, we construe Brooks’s notice of appeal and informal brief on appeal as an application to file a second or successive petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (2000). See United States v. Winestock, 340 F.3d 200, 208 (4th Cir.2003). In order to obtain authorization to file a successive § 2254 petition, a prisoner must assert claims based on either: (1) a new rule of constitutional law, previously unavailable, made retroactive by the Supreme Court to cases on collateral review; or (2) newly discovered evidence sufficient to establish that no reasonable fact finder would have found the applicant guilty. 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(C) (2000). Brooks’s claims do not satisfy either of these conditions. Therefore, we decline to authorize a successive § 2254 petition.

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

DISMISSED 
      
       This case was decided by the magistrate judge upon consent of the parties under 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(1) (2000).