Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-14-07843/USCOURTS-ca4-14-07843-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Lawrence Stafford Davis
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-7843

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

 Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

LAWRENCE STAFFORD DAVIS, a/k/a Larry,

 Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Florence. Terry L. Wooten, Chief District 

Judge. (4:06-cr-01317-TLW-1; 4:13-cv-02639-TLW)

Submitted: February 12, 2015 Decided: February 19, 2015

Before MOTZ, WYNN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Lawrence Stafford Davis, Appellant Pro Se. Robert Frank Delay, 

Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, Columbia, South Carolina, 

for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Lawrence Stafford Davis seeks to appeal the district 

court’s order dismissing his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion as 

successive and unauthorized. 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 Davis 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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