Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-15-06748/USCOURTS-ca4-15-06748-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
United States of America
Appellee
Delmar E. Walton
Appellant

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-6748

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

DELMAR E. WALTON,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern 

District of West Virginia, at Wheeling. Frederick P. Stamp, 

Jr., Senior District Judge. (5:94-cr-00066-FPS-JES-2; 5:14-cv00145-FPS-JES)

Submitted: September 9, 2015 Decided: September 14, 2015

Before SHEDD, WYNN, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Delmar E. Walton, Appellant Pro Se. Robert Hugh McWilliams, 

Jr., Assistant United States Attorney, Wheeling, West Virginia, 

for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Delmar Walton seeks to appeal the district court’s order 

accepting the recommendation of the magistrate judge and 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

Walton has not made the requisite showing. The district court 

lacked jurisdiction to consider Walton’s motion to vacate 

because it was a successive § 2255 motion for which Walton had 

not received prefiling authorization from this court. See 28 

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U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3) (2012). Accordingly, we deny Walton’s 

motion for 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

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