United States of America v. Demetrius Dwayne Swinton, a/k/a Meat, a/k/a Million Dolla Meat

23-7305Court of Appeals for the Fourth CircuitJun 18, 2024

Full text

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 23-7305
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
DEMETRIUS DWAYNE SWINTON, a/k/a Meat, a/k/a Million Dolla Meat,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Beaufort.
Richard Mark Gergel, District Judge. (9:17-cr-00945-RMG-1)
Submitted: June 13, 2024 Decided: June 18, 2024
Before RUSHING and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges, and FLOYD, Senior Circuit Judge.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Demetrius Dwayne Swinton, Appellant Pro Se.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

-- 1 of 2 --

2
PER CURIAM:
Demetrius Dwayne Swinton seeks to appeal the district court’s order denying his
Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion for relief from the district court’s prior order denying relief
on his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion. The order is not appealable unless a circuit justice or
judge issues a certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B). See generally United
States v. McRae, 793 F.3d 392, 400 & n.7 (4th Cir. 2015). 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)).
We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Swinton has not
made the requisite showing. We deny Swinton’s pending motions to supplement his
informal brief and for judicial notice. 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

-- 2 of 2 --

Continue your research in ChatGPT or Claude

Connect Omnilex to search the legal corpus from your AI assistant.