UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 10-7660

ANTHONY BERNARD PAGE,

Petitioner – Appellant,

v.

GENE M. JOHNSON,

Respondent – Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Virginia, at Alexandria. James C. Cacheris, Senior 

District Judge. (1:10-cv-00719-JCC-JFA)

Submitted: March 3, 2011 Decided: March 18, 2011

Before WILKINSON and WYNN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior 

Circuit Judge.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Anthony Bernard Page, Appellant Pro Se. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
2

PER CURIAM:

Anthony Bernard Page seeks to appeal the district 

court’s order denying relief on his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (2006)

petition. In his petition, Page raised claims related to his 

1989 conviction for eight counts of robbery as well as claims 

related to the subsequent revocation of a suspended sentence 

received for one of those robbery convictions. The district 

court dismissed petitioner’s claim relating to the revocation of 

his suspended sentence because that claim did not present a 

federal constitutional claim.*

 * Petitioner does not address the dismissal of the 

revocation challenge on appeal and we accordingly will not 

address issues related thereto. See 4th Cir. Loc. R. 34(b).

 In the same order, the district 

court indicated that petitioner’s remaining claims appeared 

untimely. In accordance with Hill v. Braxton, 277 F.3d 701, 707 

(4th Cir. 2002), the district court informed petitioner that his 

remaining claims would be dismissed as untimely unless, within 

thirty days, petitioner contested the application of the statute 

of limitations or established his entitlement to equitable 

tolling. In response, petitioner argued that he was entitled to 

equitable tolling because he had been provided with ineffective 

assistance of counsel during his 1989 sentencing and because he 

had not received a letter indicating his acceptance into a Youth 

Challenge parole program until 2010. 
3

The district court considered petitioner’s arguments 

and found them unpersuasive. The court opined that the alleged 

ineffective assistance claim did not justify tolling the statute 

of limitations for twenty years. Moreover, the court noted that 

an attachment to the habeas petition demonstrated petitioner’s 

acceptance into the parole program and knowledge of that 

acceptance before sentencing. Concluding that petitioner had 

not established his entitlement to equitable tolling, the 

district court dismissed the claims as barred by the statute of 

limitations. The district court expressly denied to issue a 

certificate of appealability. 

The district court’s order is not appealable unless a 

circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability. 

See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1) (2006). 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) 

(2006). When the district court denies relief on procedural 

grounds without reaching the merits of the underlying 

constitutional claims, 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 v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484-85

(2000). 
4

We have independently reviewed the record and conclude 

that Page has not made the requisite showing. “A 1-year period 

of limitation shall apply to an application for a writ of habeas 

corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a 

State court.” 28 U.S.C.A. § 2244(d)(1). The one-year period 

begins on the latest of four dates:

(A) the date on which the judgment became final by the 

conclusion of direct review or the expiration of the time for 

seeking such review; 

(B) the date on which the impediment to filing an 

application created by State action in violation of the 

Constitution or laws of the United States is removed, if the 

applicant was prevented from filing by such State action; 

(C) the date on which the constitutional right 

asserted was initially recognized by the Supreme Court, if the 

right has been newly recognized by the Supreme Court and made 

retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review; or 

(D) the date on which the factual predicate of the 

claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the 

exercise of due diligence. 

Id. In this case, the one-year period began on May 

21, 1989, when the time for seeking review of petitioner’s

sentence expired. See Virginia Supreme Court Rule 5:9(a). 

Petitioner did not file his habeas petition until June 20, 2010. 
5

We agree with the district court’s assessment of petitioner’s 

arguments for equitable tolling and conclude that no reasonable 

jurist could find the correctness of the district court’s 

procedural ruling debatable.

Accordingly, we deny a certificate of appealability 

and dismiss the appeal. We dispense with oral argument because 

the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the 

materials before the court and argument would not aid the 

decisional process.

DISMISSED