Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-15-06248/USCOURTS-ca4-15-06248-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Larry Cartledge
Appellee
Keith Alan Clark
Appellant

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-6248

KEITH ALAN CLARK,

Petitioner – Appellant,

v.

LARRY CARTLEDGE, Warden Perry Correctional Institution,

Respondent - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Rock Hill. Bruce H. Hendricks, District 

Judge. (0:13-cv-00351-BHH)

Submitted: November 2, 2016 Decided: November 10, 2016

Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, and NIEMEYER and HARRIS, Circuit 

Judges.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Stephen L. Braga, Joseph DaSilva, Harrison Marino, UNIVERSITY OF 

VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF LAW, Charlottesville, Virginia, for 

Appellant. Susannah Rawl Cole, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF 

SOUTH CAROLINA, Donald John Zelenka, Senior Assistant Attorney 

General, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Keith Alan Clark seeks to appeal the district court’s order 

accepting the recommendation of the magistrate judge and denying 

relief on his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion. The order is not 

appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a 

certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) (2012). 

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) (2012). When the district court denies 

relief on the merits, a prisoner satisfies this standard by 

demonstrating that reasonable jurists would find that the 

district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims is 

debatable or wrong. Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 

(2000); see Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336-38 (2003). 

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. Slack, 529 U.S. 

at 484-85. 

We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that 

Clark 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 

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contentions are adequately presented in the materials before 

this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

DISMISSED

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