UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 16-6650
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
NATHAN A. SILLA,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Greenbelt. Paul W. Grimm, District Judge. (8:11-
cr-00157-PWG-1; 8:15-cv-00656-PWG)
Submitted: October 13, 2016 Decided: October 18, 2016
Before NIEMEYER, DUNCAN, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Nathan A. Silla, Appellant Pro Se. David Ira Salem, Assistant
United States Attorney, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Nathan A. Silla seeks to appeal the district court’s order
denying relief on his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) motion. The order
is 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
Silla has not made the requisite showing. * Accordingly, we deny
* Specifically, the issues raised in Silla’s informal brief
in this court, which relate to the propriety of the district
court’s acceptance of his guilty plea and the knowing and
voluntary nature of that plea, are substantively distinct from
the ineffective assistance of counsel claims that Silla raised
(Continued)
2
a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. We
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
in his § 2255 motion. We decline to consider these newly framed
arguments. See Muth v. United States, 1 F.3d 246, 250 (4th Cir.
1993) (recognizing this court’s well-settled rule that “issues
raised for the first time on appeal generally will not be
considered,” as well as the “very limited circumstances” that
support a deviation from it).
3