United States v. David Lightner ( 2013 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-7920
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
DAVID FITZGERALD LIGHTNER,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Frank D. Whitney,
District Judge. (3:93-cr-00133-FDW-2; 3:12-cv-00544-FDW)
Submitted: May 30, 2013 Decided: June 4, 2013
Before SHEDD, DIAZ, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
David Fitzgerald Lightner, Appellant Pro Se. Amy Elizabeth Ray,
Assistant United States Attorney, Asheville, North Carolina, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
David Fitzgerald Lightner seeks to appeal the district
court’s text 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 Lightner has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly,
*
Although the district court assumed, without deciding,
that it had jurisdiction to entertain Lightner’s motion, the
motion was in fact an unauthorized successive § 2255 motion for
which Lightner failed to obtain authorization from this court to
file.
2
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
3