Opinion
21-6995
09-08-2021
DAVID HALL CRUM, Petitioner - Appellant, v. D.L. YOUNG, Warden, FCI Beckley, Respondent - Appellee.
David Hall Crum, Appellant Pro Se.
UNPUBLISHED
Submitted: September 2, 2021
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, at Beckley. Frank W. Volk, District Judge. (5:20-cv-00658)
David Hall Crum, Appellant Pro Se.
Before MOTZ, AGEE, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM.
David Hall Crum, a District of Columbia prisoner, seeks to appeal the district court's order accepting the recommendation of the magistrate judge and denying relief on Crum's 28 U.S.C. § 2241 petition. The order is not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability. 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, 137 S.Ct. 759, 773-74 (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) (citing Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000)).
Limiting our review of the record to the issues raised in Crum's informal brief, we conclude that Crum has not made the requisite showing. See 4th Cir. R. 34(b); see also Jackson v. Lightsey, 775 F.3d 170, 177 (4th Cir. 2014) ("The informal brief is an important document; under Fourth Circuit rules, our review is limited to issues preserved in that brief."). 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. [*] As to any claim Crum may have raised in the district court regarding the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), Pub. L. No. 116-136, § 12003(b)(2), 134 Stat. 218 (2020), review is foreclosed by his failure to object to the magistrate judge's recommendation to dismiss this claim and by his failure to raise this claim in his informal brief.