Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-19-06775/USCOURTS-ca4-19-06775-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Tyrone Allen
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 19-6775

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

 Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

TYRONE ALLEN,

 Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Florence. 

Terry L. Wooten, Senior District Judge. (4:02-cr-00750-TLW-1; 4:16-cv-01870-TLW)

Submitted: September 10, 2019 Decided: January 23, 2020

Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, DIAZ, Circuit Judge, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit 

Judge.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Tyrone Allen, Appellant Pro Se.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Tyrone Allen seeks to appeal the district court’s order 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. See 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. See 

Buck v. Davis, 137 S. Ct. 759, 773-74 (2017). 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 v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). 

We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Allen 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 

 * After the district court entered its judgment, the Supreme Court decided United 

States v. Davis, 139 S. Ct. 2319 (2019). In Davis, the Supreme Court held that the residual 

clause of the definition of crime of violence in 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(B) (2012) is 

unconstitutionally vague. Davis, 139 S. Ct. at 2336; accord United States v. Simms, 914 

F.3d 229, 232 (4th Cir. 2019) (en banc), petition for cert. docketed, 87 U.S.L.W. 3427 (U.S. 

Apr. 24, 2019) (No. 18-1338). However, we recently held that Hobbs Act robbery qualifies 

as a crime of violence under the force clause in 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(A), which remains 

intact after Davis. See United States v. Mathis, 932 F.3d 242, 266 (4th Cir. 2019).

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adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the 

decisional process. 

DISMISSED

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