Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-15-07276/USCOURTS-ca4-15-07276-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
John L. Mills
Appellant
Warden Lieber Correctional Institution
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-7276

JOHN L. MILLS, a/k/a John Lewis Mills,

Petitioner - Appellant,

v.

WARDEN LIEBER CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION,

Respondent - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Beaufort. Timothy M. Cain, District Judge. 

(9:14-cv-01675-TMC)

Submitted: January 27, 2016 Decided: February 3, 2016

Before GREGORY, DUNCAN, and AGEE, Circuit Judges.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

John L. Mills, Appellant Pro Se. Donald John Zelenka, Senior 

Assistant Attorney General, Melody Jane Brown, Assistant 

Attorney General, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

John L. Mills 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 (2012) petition. The order is 

not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a 

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

Mills 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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