Court Opinion

ID: 9915602
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-05 21:01:10.874725+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:17:04.421345
License: Public Domain

USCA4 Appeal: 22-7145      Doc: 20        Filed: 01/04/2024   Pg: 1 of 3

                                           UNPUBLISHED

                              UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                  FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                              No. 22-7145

        JAMES BENJAMIN IRBY,

                            Petitioner - Appellant,

                     v.

        WARDEN OF EVANS CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION,

                            Respondent - Appellee,

                     and

        STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA,

                            Respondent.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at
        Orangeburg. David C. Norton, District Judge. (5:21-cv-00912-DCN)

        Submitted: December 21, 2023                                 Decided: January 4, 2024

        Before AGEE and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges, and MOTZ, Senior Circuit Judge.

        Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        Elizabeth Anne Franklin-Best, ELIZABETH FRANKLIN-BEST, P.C., Columbia, South
        Carolina, for Appellant. William Edgar Salter, III, Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE
        OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF SOUTH CAROLINA, Columbia, South Carolina,
USCA4 Appeal: 22-7145      Doc: 20         Filed: 01/04/2024    Pg: 2 of 3

        for Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

                                                    2
USCA4 Appeal: 22-7145         Doc: 20       Filed: 01/04/2024      Pg: 3 of 3

        PER CURIAM:

               James Benjamin Irby seeks to appeal the district court’s order accepting the

        recommendation of the magistrate judge and denying relief on Irby’s 28 U.S.C. § 2254

        petition. The order is not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of

        appealability. See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A). 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). When the district court denies relief on the merits, a prisoner satisfies this

        standard by demonstrating that reasonable jurists could find the district court’s assessment

        of the constitutional claims debatable or wrong. See Buck v. Davis, 580 U.S. 100, 115-17

        (2017). 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. Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U.S.

        134, 140-41 (2012) (citing Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000)).

               We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Irby 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 contentions are

        adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the

        decisional process.

                                                                                         DISMISSED

                                                      3