Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-15-06582/USCOURTS-ca4-15-06582-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Robert Earl Hairston
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-6582

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee, 

v. 

ROBERT EARL HAIRSTON, a/k/a Showtime, 

 Defendant - Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western 

District of North Carolina, at Statesville. Richard L. 

Voorhees, District Judge. (5:99-cr-00011-RLV-3; 5:12-cv-00021-

RLV) 

Submitted: August 25, 2015 Decided: August 31, 2015

Before GREGORY and THACKER, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior 

Circuit Judge. 

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

Robert Earl Hairston, Appellant Pro Se. Amy Elizabeth Ray, 

Assistant United States Attorney, Asheville, North Carolina, for 

Appellee. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. 

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PER CURIAM: 

Robert Earl Hairston 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 

Hairston has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, we 

 * We previously reversed the district court’s order 

dismissing Hairston’s § 2255 motion as an unauthorized, 

successive motion and remanded for further proceedings. United 

States v. Hairston, 754 F.3d 258, 258-59, 262 (4th Cir. 2014). 

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deny a certificate of appealability, deny Hairston’s motion to 

expedite decision, 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

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