UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-6213

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff - Appellee, 

v. 

RAMONE HAISON ETHRIDGE, 

Defendant - Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Terrence W. Boyle, 

District Judge. (5:10-cr-00206-BO-2; 5:13-cv-00312-BO) 

Submitted: October 18, 2016 Decided: November 4, 2016

Before WILKINSON and FLOYD, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior 

Circuit Judge. 

Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

Ramone Haison Ethridge, Appellant Pro Se. S. Katherine 

Burnette, Seth Morgan Wood, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES 

ATTORNEY, Dennis Michael Duffy, Jennifer P. May-Parker, 

Assistant United States Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for 

Appellee. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. 
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PER CURIAM: 

Ramone Haison Ethridge seeks to appeal the district court’s 

order denying his self-styled motion for correction under Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 60(b) - which sought correction of the district 

court’s judgment denying relief on his 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012) 

motion - and the court’s order denying his Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) 

motion. The orders are 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 

 * In United States v. McRae, 793 F.3d 392 (4th Cir. 2015), 

we “address[ed] the question whether, in light of Reid v. 

Angelone, 369 F.3d 363 (4th Cir. 2004), and Gonzalez v. Crosby, 

545 U.S. 524 (2005), [a habeas applicant]’s appeal of the 

district court’s dismissal of his Rule 60(b) motion as an 

unauthorized successive § 2255 motion is subject to the 

certificate of appealability requirement.” Id. at 396 (internal 

quotation marks omitted). We held that no certificate of 

appealability is required for this court to “address the 

district court’s jurisdictional categorization of a Rule 60(b) 

motion as a successive habeas petition.” Id. at 399. 

Importantly, McRae abrogates the certificate of appealability 

requirement only in the narrow situation where the district 

court construes a Rule 60(b) motion as a successive habeas 

application. See id. at 400 n.7 (noting that McRae represents 

“an abrogation of only a small part of Reid’s reasoning” and 

that “Reid’s reasoning remains almost entirely intact”). 

Applying Reid and McRae here, we hold that appellate review of 

the district court’s order denying Ethridge’s Rule 60(b) motion 

is subject to the certificate of appealability requirement. The 

district court did not recharacterize Ethridge’s postjudgment 

filing as a successive § 2255 motion, and it otherwise did not 

reject the motion on jurisdictional grounds. 
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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 

Ethridge 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 before 

this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. 

DISMISSED