George Stanley Branham, Ii v. JOEL ANDERSON, Acting Director, South Carolina Department of Corrections

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 25-6225
GEORGE STANLEY BRANHAM, II,
Petitioner – Appellant,
v.
JOEL ANDERSON, Acting Director, South Carolina Department of Corrections;
SHANE JACKSON, Warden Lee Correctional Institution,
Respondents – Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Rock
Hill. Sherri A. Lydon, District Judge. (0:23-cv-00745-SAL)
Submitted: June 1, 2026 Decided: August 19, 2026
Before GREGORY and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges, and KEENAN, Senior Circuit
Judge.
Petition denied by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ON BRIEF: E. Charles Grose, Jr., THE GROSE LAW FIRM, Greenwood, South
Carolina, for Appellant.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Petitioner George Branham seeks a Certificate of Appealability (“COA”) on his
petition for writ of habeas corpus, alleging ten grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel.
Petitioner was accused of sexually assaulting his former partner’s seven-year-old
daughter. After a jury trial, he was convicted and sentenced to fifty years in prison by a
South Carolina state court. Since then, Petitioner has filed an appeal of his conviction and
sentence and an application for post-conviction relief (“PCR”), both of which were denied.
On February 24, 2023, Petitioner filed a federal habeas petition, asserting ten claims
of ineffective assistance of trial counsel—the same ten claims presented in his PCR
application. The magistrate judge and the district court judge dismissed his original habeas
petition, but granted Petition the opportunity to amend his petition and submit supplemental
briefing to cure the deficiency. Petitioner did that. Nonetheless, the magistrate judge and
the district court judge both agreed that his second round of briefing remained insufficient.
Accordingly, the district court denied his petition and denied his request for a certificate of
appealability.
This Court has reviewed Petitioner’s brief and the case record. For the reasons
stated in the district court’s order, the magistrate judge’s Report & Recommendation, and
the PCR court’s decision on the same issues, we find that Petitioner has failed to
demonstrate a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right, as required for the
issuance of a COA. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2).
PETITION DENIED

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