USCA4 Appeal: 24-6970 Doc: 7 Filed: 09/16/2025 Pg: 1 of 2

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 24-6970

ARTHUR WILLIAM MACON, Petitioner - Appellant, v. JOEL ANDERSON, Acting Director of the SC Department of Corrections; SOUTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS; WILLIAM LANGDON, III, Warden, Allendale Correctional Institution, Respondents - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Rock Hill. Henry M. Herlong, Jr., Senior District Judge. (0:24-cv-00185-HMH)

Submitted: July 31, 2025 Decided: September 16, 2025

Before THACKER and RUSHING, Circuit Judges, and KEENAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Ernest Charles Grose, Jr., GROSE LAW FIRM, LLC, Greenwood, South Carolina, for Appellant.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

USCA4 Appeal: 24-6970 Doc: 7 Filed: 09/16/2025 Pg: 2 of 2

PER CURIAM: Arthur William Macon seeks to appeal the district court’s order denying relief on his 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).

We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Macon has not made the requisite showing. Under the doubly deferential standards of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), and 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), the district court’s determination that the state court’s rejection of Macon’s ineffective assistance of counsel claims was neither contrary to nor an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law and was not based on an unreasonable determination of the facts is not debatable or wrong.

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