Court Opinion

ID: 9930908
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-07 21:01:01.131224+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:06:58.523900
License: Public Domain

USCA4 Appeal: 23-7030      Doc: 8        Filed: 02/06/2024     Pg: 1 of 3

                                            UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                              No. 23-7030

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                            Plaintiff - Appellee,

                     v.

        MALIEK KEARNEY,

                            Defendant - Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore.
        George L. Russell, III, District Judge. (1:16-cr-00486-GLR-1; 1:21-cv-03149-GLR)

        Submitted: January 30, 2024                                       Decided: February 6, 2024

        Before KING, AGEE, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

        Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        Maliek Kearney, Appellant Pro Se.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

               Maliek Kearney seeks to appeal the district court’s orders denying relief on his

        28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion and denying reconsideration. ∗ The orders are not appealable

        unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability. See 28 U.S.C.

        § 2253(c)(1)(B). 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 motion 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)).

               Limiting our review of the record to the issues raised in Kearney’s informal brief,

        we conclude that Kearney has not made the requisite showing. See 4th Cir. R. 34(b);

        Jackson v. Lightsey, 775 F.3d 170, 177 (4th Cir. 2014) (“The informal brief is an important

        document; under Fourth Circuit rules, our review is limited to issues preserved in that

        brief.”). Accordingly, we deny Kearney’s motion for preparation of the record on appeal,

        deny a certificate of appealability, and dismiss the appeal. We dispense with oral argument

               ∗
                 Although the district court improperly construed Kearney’s timely Fed. R. Civ.
        P. 59(e) motion as an unauthorized, successive § 2255 motion, see Banister v. Davis, 140
        S. Ct. 1698, 1702 (2020), this error does not affect the resolution of this appeal.

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        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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