UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 14-6627
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
ELAN CHRISTOPHER LEWIS, a/k/a Jamal Xavier Harris,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Richmond. John A. Gibney, Jr.,
District Judge. (3:94-cr-00094-JAG-1; 3:13-cv-00410-JAG)
Submitted: July 24, 2014 Decided: July 29, 2014
Before FLOYD and THACKER, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Elan Christopher Lewis, Appellant Pro Se. David Thomas Maguire,
Assistant United States Attorney, Richmond, Virginia, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Elan Christopher Lewis seeks to appeal the district
court’s orders dismissing his “Motion for Leave to File
‘Relation Back Amendment’ and/or ‘Supplemental Pleading’” as a
successive 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion and denying his
subsequent Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) motion. The orders are not
appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a
certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(B) (2012).
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
(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 Lewis has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we
deny a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. We
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dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before
this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
DISMISSED
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