US v. Ernest Smith, No. 14-6244 (4th Cir. 2014)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 14-6244 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff Appellee, v. ERNEST LEE SMITH, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Wilmington. Louise W. Flanagan, District Judge. (7:07-cr-00123-FL-1; 7:12-cv-00211-FL) Submitted: May 29, 2014 Decided: June 3, 2014 Before SHEDD, WYNN, and THACKER, Circuit Judges. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Ernest Lee Smith, Appellant Pro Se. Leslie Katherine Cooley, Michael Gordon James, Shailika K. Shah, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Edward D. Gray, Assistant United States Attorney, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Ernest Lee Smith seeks to appeal the district court s orders denying relief on his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion and denying Smith s reconsideration. justice or Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) motion for The orders are not appealable unless a circuit judge issues a certificate U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) (2012). of 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 Smith has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. dispense with oral argument because 2 the facts and We 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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