Breon Jacoby Mayers v. BRYAN STIRLING, Commissioner South Carolina Department of Corrections

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 25-6421
BREON JACOBY MAYERS,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v.
BRYAN STIRLING, Commissioner South Carolina Department of Corrections;
LEVERN COHEN, Warden, Lee Correctional Institution,
Respondents - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Rock
Hill. David C. Norton, District Judge. (0:24-cv-01240-DCN)
Submitted: January 22, 2026 Decided: January 27, 2026
Before AGEE, RICHARDSON, and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Elizabeth Anne Franklin-Best, ELIZABETH FRANKLIN-BEST, P.C., Columbia, South
Carolina, for Appellant.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Breon Jacoby Mayers seeks to appeal the district court’s order accepting the
recommendation of the magistrate judge and denying relief on Mayers’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).
We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Mayers 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

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