UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-6670

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

DESHAWN ANDERSON, a/k/a Buddha; MARVIN WAYNE WILLIAMS, JR., 

a/k/a Lil Wayne,

Defendants - Appellants.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

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

District Judge. (1:09-cr-00414-JCC-2; 1:14-cv-00364-JCC; 1:09-

cr-00414-JCC-3; 1:14-cv-00060-JCC)

Submitted: September 30, 2015 Decided: December 29, 2015

Before MOTZ, DIAZ, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Deshawn Anderson, Marvin Wayne Williams, Jr., Appellants Pro Se. 

Michael Phillip Ben’Ary, Assistant United States Attorney, 

Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Deshawn Anderson and Marvin Wayne Williams, Jr.,

(Appellants) seek to appeal the district court’s orders denying 

relief on their 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motions. 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. 

Appellants complain that the district court denied their 

postjudgment motion to amend their action to include a claim 

pursuant to Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012). The 

Miller claim was raised more than one year after Appellants’ 

convictions became final. See United States v. Segers, 271 F.3d 
3

181, 186 (4th Cir. 2001) (conviction becomes final once Supreme 

Court denies petition for certiorari). As the Miller claim does 

not arise from the same “conduct, transaction, or occurrence” in 

the original pleading, it does not relate back to the date of 

the original pleading. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(c)(1)(B); United

States v. Pittman, 209 F.3d 314, 318 (4th Cir. 2000) (holding 

new claim must be of same “time and type” as original claims). 

Because leave to amend may be denied when the proposed claim 

would be time-barred, Pittman, 209 F.3d at 317, we conclude that

any error by the district court was harmless, as the motion 

would have been denied under Rule 15(c).*

We have independently reviewed the records and conclude 

that Appellants have not made the requisite showing for the 

issuance of a certificate of appealability. Accordingly, we 

deny a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. We 

dispense with oral arguments because the facts and legal 

contentions are adequately presented in the materials before 

this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

DISMISSED

 * This Court has held that the rule in Miller is not 

retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review. Johnson 

v. Ponton, 780 F.3d 219, 224-26 (4th Cir. 2015). Thus, the 

delayed commencement date for the statute of limitations in 

§ 2255(f)(3) is not applicable.