Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-11-07477/USCOURTS-ca4-11-07477-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Elijah Gaylon Jones
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 11-7477

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

 Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

ELIJAH GAYLON JONES,

 Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Greenville. Henry F. Floyd, District Judge. 

(6:07-cr-00704-HFF-1; 6:10-cv-70268-HFF)

Submitted: November 27, 2012 Decided: January 3, 2013

Before AGEE, KEENAN, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Elijah Gaylon Jones, Appellant Pro Se. William Corley Lucius, 

Assistant United States Attorney, Greenville, South Carolina, 

for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Elija Gaylon Jones seeks to appeal the district 

court’s order dismissing as untimely 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 MillerEl 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 Jones has not made the requisite showing. Accordingly, 

although we grant Jones’s motion to amend his informal brief, we 

deny a certificate of appealability and dismiss the appeal. We 

deny Jones’s motion for transcripts at government expense. See

28 U.S.C. § 753(f) (2006). We dispense with oral argument 

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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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