Court Opinion

ID: 9915212
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-04 21:00:58.615026+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:18:32.092968
License: Public Domain

USCA4 Appeal: 22-7129      Doc: 13         Filed: 01/03/2024     Pg: 1 of 3

                                            UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                               No. 22-7129

        KEITH MARTIN MOLINEAUX,

                             Petitioner - Appellant,

                      v.

        DONNIE AMES,

                             Respondent - Appellee.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, at
        Charleston. Irene C. Berger, District Judge. (2:21-cv-00190)

        Submitted: December 14, 2023                                      Decided: January 3, 2024

        Before KING and AGEE, Circuit Judges, and KEENAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

        Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        Keith Martin Molineaux, Appellant Pro Se. Lindsay Sara See, Michael Ray Williams,
        OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF WEST VIRGINIA, Charleston, West
        Virginia, for Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

               Keith Martin Molineaux seeks to appeal the district court’s order accepting the

        recommendation of the magistrate judge and denying relief on Molineaux’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 Molineaux has not

        made the requisite showing. * Accordingly, we grant Molineaux’s motion to exceed length

        limitations for his informal brief, deny his motion for a certificate of appealability, and

               *
                 We limit our review of the record to the issues Molineaux properly preserved for
        appeal. See Garey v. James S. Farrin, P.C., 35 F.4th 917, 928 (4th Cir. 2022) (noting we
        do “not consider issues raised for the first time on appeal, absent exceptional
        circumstances” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Martin v. Duffy, 858 F.3d 239, 245
        (4th Cir. 2017) (holding that, “to preserve for appeal an issue in a magistrate judge’s report,
        a party must object to the finding or recommendation on that issue with sufficient
        specificity so as reasonably to alert the district court of the true ground for the objection”
        (internal quotation marks omitted)).

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        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

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