Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-14-07681/USCOURTS-ca4-14-07681-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Ernest Sterling Wright
Appellant

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-7681

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

ERNEST STERLING WRIGHT, a/k/a Petey Wise,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Virginia, at Newport News. Raymond A. Jackson, 

District Judge. (4:96-cr-00022-RAJ-2)

Submitted: March 9, 2015 Decided: March 13, 2015

Before MOTZ, KING, and SHEDD, Circuit Judges.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Ernest Sterling Wright, Appellant Pro Se. Eric Matthew Hurt, 

Assistant United States Attorney, Newport News, Virginia, for 

Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Ernest Sterling Wright 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 

Wright has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we deny 

a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. We 

dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal 

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contentions are adequately presented in the materials before 

this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

DISMISSED

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