UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 09-7942
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
HENRY CHESTER, a/k/a Zeke,
Defendant – Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Florence. Cameron McGowan Currie, District
Judge. (4:94-cr-00665-CMC-1)
Submitted: June 24, 2010 Decided: July 6, 2010
Before KING and GREGORY, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Henry Chester, Appellant Pro Se. Alfred William Walker Bethea,
Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, Florence, South Carolina,
for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Henry “Zeke” Chester seeks to appeal the district
court’s order treating his motion filed under Fed. R. Crim. P.
36 as a successive 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West Supp. 2010) motion,
and dismissing it on that basis. The order is not appealable
unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of
appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1) (2006); see generally
Reid v. Angelone, 369 F.3d 363, 369 (4th Cir. 2004). 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) (2006). 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
(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 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 Chester has not made the requisite showing.
Accordingly, we deny a certificate of appealability and dismiss
the appeal. We dispense with oral argument because the facts
2
and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before the court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
DISMISSED
3