United States v. Donald Shealey

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 16-6156 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. DONALD STANTON SHEALEY, a/k/a Face, a/k/a Diddy, a/k/a Face Diddy, a/k/a The City, a/k/a Donald Santon Shealey, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. James C. Fox, Senior District Judge. (5:08-cr-00282-F-2; 5:12-cv-00538-F) Submitted: August 25, 2016 Decided: August 29, 2016 Before NIEMEYER, DIAZ, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges. Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Donald Stanton Shealey, Appellant Pro Se. Stephen Aubrey West, Assistant United States Attorney, Jonathan Philip Holbrook, Tobin Webb Lathan, Banumathi Rangarajan, Denise Walker, Seth Morgan Wood, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: Donald Stanton Shealey seeks to appeal the district court’s orders accepting the recommendation of the magistrate judge and denying relief on his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion and denying his 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 Shealey has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny Shealey’s motion for a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the 2 materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. DISMISSED 3