Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-16-06257/USCOURTS-ca4-16-06257-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Daren Kareem Gadsden
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-6257

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

DAREN KAREEM GADSDEN, a/k/a D,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

Maryland, at Baltimore. Catherine C. Blake, Chief District 

Judge. (1:11-cr-00302-CCB-3; 1:15-cv-01965-CCB)

Submitted: May 26, 2016 Decided: June 1, 2016

Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, and NIEMEYER and FLOYD, Circuit 

Judges.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Daren Kareem Gadsden, Appellant Pro Se. Sujit Raman, Assistant 

United States Attorney, Greenbelt, Maryland, Rod J. Rosenstein, 

United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Daren Kareem Gadsden seeks to appeal the district court’s 

order denying relief on his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion and 

he has filed a motion to disqualify the United States Attorney, 

as well as a self-styled “writ of error[.]” The district 

court’s 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 

Gadsden has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we 

deny Gadsden’s motion to disqualify the United States Attorney, 

deny his writ of error, deny a certificate of appealability, and 

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dismiss the appeal. We dispense with oral argument because the 

facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the 

materials before this court and argument would not aid the 

decisional process.

DISMISSED

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