Background
Bernard Celestine, proceeding pro se, appealed a district court order denying his most recent motions in his criminal action. These motions included a petition under Section twenty-two hundred fifty-five of Title twenty-eight of the United States Code, a motion for compassionate release under Section thirty-five hundred eighty-two of Title eighteen, and a motion for sentence reduction under the First Step Act. The district court had dismissed the Section twenty-two hundred fifty-five motion as successive and unauthorized.
The court’s reasoning
The court confined its review to issues raised in the informal brief. Regarding the Section twenty-two hundred fifty-five motion, the court noted that an appeal is not permissible unless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability. Such a certificate requires a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right. When relief is denied on procedural grounds, the prisoner must demonstrate that the procedural ruling is debatable and that the motion states a debatable claim of a constitutional right. Because Celestine did not challenge the district court’s dismissal of the Section twenty-two hundred fifty-five motion in his informal brief, he failed to make the requisite showing. For the remaining issues, the court reviewed the record and found no reversible error.
What it means going forward
The ruling limits the ability of pro se prisoners to appeal procedural dismissals of habeas motions without explicitly challenging those procedural grounds in their informal briefs. It reinforces the requirement that a certificate of appealability must be sought and granted before a court can review the merits of a successive habeas petition dismissed on procedural grounds.