Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-16-06103/USCOURTS-ca4-16-06103-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Harold W. Clarke
Appellee
Gregory Wardell Driver
Appellant
Portsmouth Circuit Court

Bill Watson

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-6103

GREGORY WARDELL DRIVER,

 Petitioner - Appellant,

v.

HAROLD W. CLARKE, Director, Virginia Department of 

Corrections,

Respondent – Appellee,

and

BILL WATSON; PORTSMOUTH CIRCUIT COURT,

Respondents.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Raymond A. Jackson, District 

Judge. (2:14-cv-00590-RAJ-LRL)

Submitted: May 18, 2016 Decided: May 23, 2016

Before SHEDD, DIAZ, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Gregory Wardell Driver, Appellant Pro Se. Kathleen Beatty 

Martin, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Richmond, Virginia, 

for Appellee.

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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Gregory Wardell Driver 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 

Driver has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny 

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a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal as moot.* 

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

 * We note that Driver’s supervised probation ended in 

November 2015.

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