Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-08-08531/USCOURTS-ca4-08-08531-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Orlando Smith
Appellant
Warden, Broad River Correctional Institution
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 08-8531

ORLANDO SMITH, 

Petitioner – Appellant, 

v. 

WARDEN, BROAD RIVER CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION, 

Respondent – Appellee. 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Greenville. R. Bryan Harwell, District 

Judge. (6:07-cv-00327-RBH) 

Submitted: July 26, 2010 Decided: August 10, 2010

Before MOTZ and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior 

Circuit Judge. 

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

Orlando Smith, Appellant Pro Se. Henry Dargan McMaster, 

Attorney General, William Edgar Salter, III, Assistant Attorney 

General, Donald John Zelenka, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, 

Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM: 

Orlando Smith seeks to appeal the district court’s 

order accepting the recommendation of the magistrate judge and 

denying relief on his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (2006) petition. The 

order is not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues 

a certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1) (2006). 

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) (2006). 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 petition 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 Smith has not made the requisite showing. 

Accordingly, we deny a certificate of appealability, deny leave 

to proceed in forma pauperis, 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 the 

court and argument would not aid the decisional process. 

DISMISSED

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