Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-10-06434/USCOURTS-ca4-10-06434-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Johney Freeman
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 10-6434

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

JOHNEY FREEMAN,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Rebecca Beach Smith, District 

Judge. (2:88-cr-00076-jcc-2)

Submitted: July 27, 2010 Decided: August 5, 2010

Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, and WILKINSON and KEENAN, Circuit 

Judges.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Johney Freemen, Appellant Pro Se. Robert Joseph Seidel, Jr., 

Assistant United States Attorney, Norfolk, Virginia, for 

Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Johney Freeman seeks to appeal the district court’s 

order denying his “Motion to Correct Illegal Sentence” as a 

successive motion under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West Supp. 2010). 

The order is not appealable unless a circuit justice or judge 

issues a certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1) 

(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 Freeman 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 contentions are adequately presented in the materials 

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before the court and argument would not aid the decisional 

process.

DISMISSED

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