Justia U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Petitioners (father, mother, and four children), natives and citizens of Guatemala, petitioned for review of the BIA's order affirming the IJ's decision that the mother and father's monetary assistance to their children amounted to "alien smuggling" pursuant to section 212(a)(6)(E) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq. Mother and father had sent several thousand dollars to each child at a hotel in Mexico and each child would subsequently arrive illegally in the United States promptly thereafter. The court held that because the IJ and the BIA properly interpreted and applied the "alien smuggling" provision, the court denied the petition for review.

Defendant pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and the district court sentenced him to 78 months' imprisonment, based in part on its finding that defendant had committed the offense subsequent to sustaining at least two felony convictions for a "crime of violence." On appeal, defendant argued that the district court erred in relying on his Maryland second degree assault conviction to enhance his offense level. The court found that it was uncontested that the district court relied upon an officer's sworn statements contained in a statement of probable cause that was not expressly incorporated into the statement of charges to determine that defendant's Maryland second degree assault constituted a predicate offense under U.S.S.G. 2K2.1(a)(2). Therefore, the court held that the district court erred in relying on facts contained in the unincorporated affidavit to find that defendant had two qualifying convictions. Accordingly, the judgment was vacated and remanded.

Defendants were charged with offenses related to their membership in the Pagans Motorcycle Club. At issue was whether 18 U.S.C. 922(h), which prohibited a person from possessing a firearm while "employed for" a convicted felon, applied only to persons employed for tangible compensation. After holding that section 922(g) required the government to prove some form of payment - and noting the government's concession that it could not make such a showing here - the district court granted defendants' motions to dismiss all charges based on section 922(h). The court held that the statute, however, did not contain an inflexible requirement that compensation be involved. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's dismissal of the charges and remanded for further proceedings.

A jury convicted of Daryl Taylor and Antwan Thompson of being felons in possession of a firearm under 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) after they were caught with a loaded handgun on a Baltimore Street. The district court imposed an eight-year sentence on Taylor and a fifteen-year sentence on Thompson because his prior convictions qualified him for the mandatory minimum under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 19 U.S.C. 924(e). On appeal, Taylor challenged both his conviction and sentence and Thompson objected only to his sentence under the ACCA. The court held that the evidence was sufficient to allow a reasonable jury to find Taylor guilty of unlawful possession under section 922(g)(1). The court declined Taylor's invitation to invalidate the enhancement in section 2K2.1(b)(4)(A) of the Sentencing Guidelines and held that the district court's sentence fell within the range of reasonable punishments. The court also held that, taken as a whole, Thompson's plea proceedings afforded ample support for the finding of the district court that his plea of guilty constituted an admission of the violent conduct reflected in the sole proffered factual basis for the plea. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

This case presented two questions, each born of the efforts of Capital One, a credit card issuer, to defer significant tax liability. First, whether Capital One could retroactively change the method of accounting used to report credit-card late fees on its 1998-1999 tax returns in such a fashion as would reduce is taxable income for those years by roughly $400,000,000. Second, whether Capital One could deduct the estimated costs of coupon redemption related to its MilesOne credit card program before credit card customers actually redeemed those coupons. The court did not permit Capital One to retroactively change the method of accounting because allowing Capital One to do so would open the door to unilateral and retroactive changes in accounting methods with large and unpredictable implications for public revenue. The court also declined to permit the narrow coupon-with-sales exception to undermine the purposes of the all-events rule because little good and much mischief would ensue from upending the Commissioner's reasonable and longstanding interpretation of his regulation. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the Tax Court.

This case involved the Carmack Amendment to the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U.S.C. 14706, which set up a framework for the timely filing of claims against carriers for damaged cargo. In this case, it was undisputed that neither the shipper nor the shipping broker filed either a claim or a lawsuit within the prescribed time limitations. Therefore, were the court to create some exception to the statutorily authorized, contractually mandated requirements of prompt filing, the court would blow a hole in the balance struck by the Carmack Amendment and undermine Congress's intent to protect carriers against stale claims. Therefore, the court reversed the judgment of the district court in favor of the shipping broker and remanded with instructions to dismiss the lawsuit.

Defendant pleaded guilty to violating 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) and 924. On appeal, defendant objected to the district court's application of the section 924(e)(1) sentencing enhancement, asserting that recent Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit decisions undermined the PSR's contention that his previous convictions were for Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) violent felonies. A divided panel of the court affirmed defendant's sentence, employing the "modified categorical approach" first announced in Taylor v. United States, for the purpose of analyzing prior offenses to determine whether they constituted ACCA violent felonies. Upon granting defendant's petition for rehearing en banc, the court vacated the panel opinion. When the court considered defendant's charging documents in their proper legal context, the court could not determine that he was convicted of violating N.C. Gen. State 14-202(a)(2). Consequently, defendant's indecent liberties offenses were not ACCA violent felonies.