Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-14-07878/USCOURTS-ca4-14-07878-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Robert G. White
Appellant

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-7878

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

ROBERT WHITE,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Charleston. Patrick Michael Duffy, Senior

District Judge. (2:00-cr-00022-PMD-1; 2:14-cv-03761-PMD)

Submitted: September 9, 2015 Decided: September 11, 2015

Before SHEDD, WYNN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Robert G. White, Appellant Pro Se. Robert Nicholas Bianchi, 

OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charleston, South 

Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Robert White seeks to appeal the district court’s orders 

denying his motion to disqualify the district court judge, 

dismissing as successive his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion, and 

denying his motion under Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). The orders are

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 

White 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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