Case ID: f-appx_70/html/0151-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Leon SMALL, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Rickie HARRISON, Warden; Charles Condon, Attorney General of the State of South Carolina, Respondents-Appellees.
    No. 03-6759.
    United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.
    Submitted July 24, 2003.
    Decided July 31, 2003.
    Leon Small, Appellant Pro Se. Samuel Creighton Waters, OFfice of the Attorney General of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees.
    Before MICHAEL and MOTZ, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge.
    Dismissed by unpublished PER CURIAM opinion.
   PER CURIAM.

Leon Small seeks to appeal the district court’s order accepting the magistrate judge’s recommendation and denying relief on his petition filed under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (2000). The order is not appeal-able unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1) (2000). 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, 123 S.Ct. 1029, 1040, 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.), cert. denied, 534 U.S. 941, 122 S.Ct. 318, 151 L.Ed.2d 237 (2001). We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Small 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 the court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

DISMISSED.