United States of America v. Sammy Chavis

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 09-7507
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
SAMMY CHAVIS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Florence. Cameron McGowan Currie, District
Judge. (4:95-cr-00033-CMC-1; 4:97-cv-03393-CMC)
Submitted: February 18, 2010 Decided: February 24, 2010
Before WILKINSON, MICHAEL, and KING, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Sammy Chavis, Appellant Pro Se. Alfred William Walker Bethea,
Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, Florence, South Carolina,
for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Sammy Chavis seeks to appeal the district court’s
order denying his Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6) motion. The order is
not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a
certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1) (2006);
Reid v. Angelone, 369 F.3d 363, 369 (4th Cir. 2004). 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) (2006). A prisoner satisfies this
standard by demonstrating that reasonable jurists would find
that any assessment of the constitutional claims by the district
court is debatable or wrong and that any dispositive procedural
ruling by the district court is likewise debatable. Miller-
El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336-38 (2003); Slack v. McDaniel,
529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000); Rose v. Lee, 252 F.3d 676, 683-84 (4th
Cir. 2001). We have independently reviewed the record and
conclude that Chavis has not made the requisite showing.
Accordingly, we deny Chavis’s motion for a certificate of
appealability, deny leave to proceed in forma pauperis, and
dismiss the appeal.
To the extent that Chavis’s notice of appeal and
informal brief could be construed as a motion for authorization
to file a successive § 2255 motion, we deny such authorization.
See United States v. Winestock, 340 F.3d 200, 208 (4th Cir.

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2003). We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before the court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
DISMISSED

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