UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 13-6428
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
LAMONT ALVIN MCELVEEN,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Florence. Terry L. Wooten, Chief District
Judge. (4:03-cr-00473-TLW-1; 4:12-cv-02325-TLW)
Submitted: May 30, 2013 Decided: June 5, 2013
Before SHEDD, DIAZ, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Lamont Alvin McElveen, 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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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:
Lamont Alvin McElveen seeks to appeal the district
court’s order denying relief on his 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West
Supp. 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) (2006). 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 McElveen has not made the requisite showing. * Accordingly,
*
McElveen previously was denied relief under 28 U.S.C.
§ 2255. Because he did not obtain pre-filing authorization from
this court to file the motion at issue in this appeal, that
motion is unauthorized and successive, and the district court
lacked jurisdiction to consider it. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h);
(Continued)
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we deny 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
United States v. Winestock, 340 F.3d 200, 204-05 (4th Cir. 2003)
(describing procedural requirements to file successive
applications for collateral review). In any event, were we to
consider McElveen’s claim on the merits, we would conclude
without difficulty that McElveen has demonstrated no debatable
ground for relief.
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