Kenneth Thomas Hester v. Superintendent Sandra Thomas

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-7678
KENNETH THOMAS HESTER,
Petitioner - Appellant,
v.
SUPERINTENDENT SANDRA THOMAS,
Respondent - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Terrence W. Boyle,
District Judge. (5:09-hc-02007-BO)
Submitted: February 24, 2011 Decided: March 3, 2011
Before GREGORY, SHEDD, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.
Dismissed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Kenneth Thomas Hester, Appellant Pro Se. Mary Carla Hollis,
Assistant Attorney General, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Kenneth Thomas Hester seeks to appeal the district
court’s order denying his Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) motion for
reconsideration of the district court’s order denying relief on
his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (2006) petition. The order is not
appealable unless a circuit justice or judge issues a
certificate of appealability. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1) (2006);
Reid v. Angelone, 369 F.3d 363, 369 (4th Cir. 2004).
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 petition 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 Hester 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

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and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before the court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
DISMISSED

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