US v. Douglas Whitfield, No. 13-6909 (4th Cir. 2013)

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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 13-6909 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. DOUGLAS GENE WHITFIELD, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. James C. Dever, III, Chief District Judge. (5:10-cr-00121-D-3; 5:11-cv-00610-D) Submitted: November 19, 2013 Before WYNN and Circuit Judge. FLOYD, Circuit Decided: November 22, 2013 Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Douglas G. Whitfield, Appellant Pro Se. Seth Morgan Wood, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Douglas Gene Whitfield seeks to appeal the district court s order denying relief on his 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West Supp. 2013) motion. The order is not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) (2006). A certificate of appealability will not issue absent a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right. (2006). 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2) When the district court denies relief on the merits, a prisoner satisfies this jurists would reasonable standard find by that demonstrating the district that court s assessment of the constitutional claims is debatable or wrong. Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000); see Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336-38 (2003). denies relief demonstrate both on procedural that the When the district court grounds, dispositive the prisoner procedural ruling must is debatable, and that the motion states a debatable claim of the denial of a constitutional right. Slack, 529 U.S. at 484-85. We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Whitfield has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. * * Whitfield also seeks to appeal the district court s denial of his Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) motion. We conclude that we lack jurisdiction over an appeal from that motion because Whitfield did (Continued) 2 We dispense contentions with are oral argument adequately because presented in the facts and the materials legal before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED not file a new notice of appeal or amend his notice of appeal to embrace the district court s order. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(4)(B)(ii). 3

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