USCA4 Appeal: 23-6944 Doc: 19 Filed: 02/29/2024 Pg: 1 of 3

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 23-6944

JOHN DWAYNE GARVIN,

Petitioner - Appellant,

v.

LEVERN COHEN, Warden,

Respondent - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Charleston. David C. Norton, District Judge. (2:22-cv-00994-DCN)

Submitted: January 31, 2024 Decided: February 29, 2024

Before WILKINSON, RICHARDSON, and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

John Dwayne Garvin, Appellant Pro Se.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. USCA4 Appeal: 23-6944 Doc: 19 Filed: 02/29/2024 Pg: 2 of 3

PER CURIAM:

John Dwayne Garvin seeks to appeal the district court’s orders accepting the

recommendation of the magistrate judge and denying relief on Garvin’s

petition and denying his Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) and 60(b) motions. The orders are not

appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability. See

(c)(1)(A). A certificate of appealability will not issue absent “a substantial

showing of the denial of a constitutional right.”

(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,

, 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,

(2012) (citing

Slack v. McDaniel,

(2000)).

We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Garvin has not made

the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny a certificate of appealability and dismiss the

appeal. ∗ Garvin’s motion to remand and emergency motion are denied. We dispense with

∗ The district court denied the motions for reconsideration based on its mistaken belief that Garvin’s appeal divested it of jurisdiction to consider the motions. However, Garvin failed to state grounds for Rule 59(e) relief, see Robinson v. Wix Filtration Corp.,

(4th Cir. 2010), and his Rule 60(b) motion sought to reargue the claims he asserted in his § 2254 petition and therefore was an unauthorized, successive § 2254 petition over which the district court lacked jurisdiction; see

(b)(3);

2 USCA4 Appeal: 23-6944 Doc: 19 Filed: 02/29/2024 Pg: 3 of 3

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

United States v. Winestock,

(4th Cir. 2003). Therefore, the denial of the motions for reconsideration is not debatable.

3