US v. Delvaz Saunders, No. 14-6133 (4th Cir. 2014)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 14-6133 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. DELVAZ SAUNDERS, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. J. Frederick Motz, Senior District Judge. (1:08-cr-00556-JFM-1; 1:13-cv-02604-JFM) Submitted: August 21, 2014 Decided: September 3, 2014 Before KEENAN and WYNN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Delvaz Saunders, Appellant Pro Se. Christine Marie Celeste, Ayn Brigoli Ducao, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Delvaz Saunders seeks to appeal the district court s order denying relief on his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion. The order is not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate (2012). of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) 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). relief on the demonstrating district merits, that court s debatable or a When the district court denies prisoner reasonable assessment wrong. Slack satisfies jurists this would of the v. McDaniel, standard find U.S. that the claims constitutional 529 by is 473, 484 (2000); see Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336-38 (2003). 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 claim of the denial of a constitutional right. a debatable Slack, 529 U.S. at 484-85. We have independently reviewed the record and conclude that Saunders has not made the requisite showing. The district court lacked jurisdiction to consider Saunders motion to vacate 2 because it was a successive and unauthorized § 2255 motion. In the absence of pre-filing authorization from this court, the district court lacks jurisdiction to hear a successive § 2255 motion. See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3) (2012). Accordingly, we deny a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. dispense with contentions are oral argument adequately because presented in the the facts We and legal materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED In its memorandum denying relief on Saunders first § 2255 motion, the district court noted its intent to enter an amended judgment reducing Saunders term of supervised release from the ten-year term imposed at sentencing to the five-year term stipulated in the plea agreement. However, the district court s docket does not reflect that it has entered an amended judgment reducing Saunders term of supervised release, and in fact, a subsequent amended judgment indicates a supervised release term of ten years. 3
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