US v. Raymond Chestnut, No. 14-6118 (4th Cir. 2014)

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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 14-6118 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. RAYMOND EDWARD CHESTNUT, a/k/a Snoop, a/k/a Ray, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Florence. R. Bryan Harwell, District Judge. (4:05-cr-01044-RBH-1; 4:11-cv-02488-RBH) Submitted: May 22, 2014 Before TRAXLER, Circuit Judges. Chief Decided: May 29, 2014 Judge, and HAMILTON and DAVIS, Senior Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Raymond Edward Chestnut, Appellant Pro Se. Robert Frank Daley, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, Columbia, South Carolina; Arthur Bradley Parham, Assistant United States Attorney, Florence, South Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Raymond Edward Chestnut seeks to appeal the district court s order construing his motion for reconsideration as a successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion and dismissing it on that basis. justice or The judge order issues is a not appealable certificate U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) (2012). of unless a circuit appealability. 28 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) (2012). When the district court denies relief on the merits, a prisoner satisfies this standard by demonstrating that reasonable jurists would find that the district court s assessment of the constitutional claims is debatable or wrong. Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 Cockrell, (2000); (2003). see Miller-El v. 537 U.S. 322, 336-38 When the district court denies relief on procedural grounds, the prisoner must demonstrate both that the dispositive procedural ruling 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 Chestnut has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. We dispense with oral argument 2 because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED 3

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