US v. Bernard Celestine, No. 14-6971 (4th Cir. 2014)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 14-6971 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. BERNARD CELESTINE, a/k/a Speed, a/k/a Beaver, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Greenville. Malcolm J. Howard, Senior District Judge. (4:95-cr-00041-H-9; 4:14-cv-00054-H) Submitted: November 20, 2014 Decided: November 25, 2014 Before KING and KEENAN, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Bernard Celestine, Appellant Pro Se. Rudolf A. Renfer, Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Bernard Celestine seeks to appeal the district court’s orders dismissing his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion as successive and unauthorized, and denying his subsequently filed motion for a certificate of appealability. appealable unless a circuit certificate of appealability. A certificate of justice These orders are not or judge issues a 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) (2012). 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 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 on both procedural that the When the district court grounds, dispositive the prisoner procedural must 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 Celestine 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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