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

Articles Posted in November, 2011
by
This case stemmed from debtors' voluntary petition for bankruptcy relief under Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code. When the Chapter 13 trustee moved to dismiss the case or to convert it to a Chapter 7 case, debtors filed a motion to convert their case to a Chapter 7 case, which the bankruptcy court granted. Thereafter, the U.S. Trustee filed a motion to dismiss the Chapter 7 case. At issue was whether an order denying the U.S. Trustee's motion to dismiss a debtor's Chapter 7 bankruptcy case as abusive under 11 U.S.C. 707(b) was a final order appealable under 28 U.S.C. 158(a). The district court dismissed the trustee's appeal, ruling that the bankruptcy court's order was interlocutory and therefore not appealable to the district court. The court held that because of the particular effect that an order denying a motion to dismiss a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case as abusive had on the bankruptcy proceedings, a bankruptcy court's order denying such a motion was appealable to the district court. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's order dismissing the trustee's appeal and remanded for further proceedings.

by
A jury convicted defendants of various drug related offenses. As part of their sentences, the district court ordered defendants to forfeit assets connected to their drug crimes pursuant to 21 U.S.C. 853. On appeal, defendants sought vacature of the district court's orders of forfeiture. The court rejected defendant Martin's argument that the government's pre-trial actions with respect to her property violated the civil forfeiture statute where Martin did not dispute that the evidence produced by the government, independent of the property, was sufficient to justify the criminal forfeiture. The court also held that because the Rule 32.2 deadline, as it then existed, was most persuasively understood as a time-related directive rather than a jurisdictional condition, and because defendants were indisputably on notice at the time of sentencing that the district court would enter forfeiture orders, the court refused to vacate the district court's tardy forfeiture orders.

by
Defendant was found guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm. At issue was whether defendant's prior convictions for breaking and entering the "Sunrise-Sunset Restaurant" and the "Corner Market" under Virginia's non-generic burglary statute qualified as violent felonies under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1). The district court found that they did not. The court disagreed and found that the language of the relevant indictments mandated that the prior convictions were based on entries into buildings or structures. Therefore, the court vacated defendant's sentence and remanded for resentencing.

by
Petitioner was convicted of three counts each of first degree premeditated murder, first degree murder committed in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of a kidnapping, and kidnapping resulting in death. The court granted a certificate of appealability to consider petitioner's claim that his constitutional rights to due process of law and effective assistance of counsel were violated by the introduction of Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis (CBLA). The court held that there was no reasonable probability that the district court would have excluded the CBLA testimony at petitioner's trial had it been challenged, or that the outcome of the guilt or sentencing phase would have been different had the CBLA evidence been excluded or subject to additional cross-examination. The court also held that petitioner failed to demonstrate that defense counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to file a motion for a new trial based upon the post-trial studies. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's order denying petitioner's motion under 28 U.S.C. 2255.

by
Defendant, a mentally retarded handyman, was in prison for nearly thirty years for the murder of an elderly woman who had sporadically employed him. The 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition on appeal was part of defendant's very first effort to secure federal habeas corpus relief. The federal habeas proceedings were prolonged in part because of the court's stay of the appeal to await further state court action. Having scrutinized volumes of records of defendant's three trials and his state PCR proceedings, the court recognized that there were grave questions about whether it really was defendant who committed the murder. The court held that defendant was entitled to habeas corpus relief on his Sixth Amendment claim of ineffective assistance of counsel premised on his trial lawyers' blind acceptance of the State's forensic evidence. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's judgment denying relief and remanded for the court to award the writ unless the State of South Carolina endeavored to prosecute defendant in a new trial within a reasonable time.

by
In this appeal, the court considered whether defendant's sentence for possession of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(5)(B), was properly enhanced, as provided in 18 U.S.C. 2252A(b)(2), based on his prior conviction under South Carolina common law for assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature (ABHAN). Defendant argued on appeal that the district court erred in applying the modified categorical approach, and that the district court should have limited its consideration of the prior conviction to a categorical analysis. The court disagreed and held that defendant's ABHAN conviction qualified as a predicate offense under section 2252A(b)(2). Accordingly, the district court properly determined that defendant was subject to the minimum statutory sentence of 10 years' imprisonment under the sexual abuse enhancement, and the court affirmed the district court's judgment.

by
Defendant was convicted of simple possession of crack cocaine and sentenced to a 63-month term of imprisonment. On appeal, defendant contended that the district court erred by denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained by police after a patdown where defendant was a passenger in a vehicle that was subject to a routine traffic stop. The court held that the government failed to meet its burden of establishing that officers had a reasonable suspicion that defendant was armed and dangerous when the patdown began. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment of the district court.

by
Defendant was convicted by a jury of conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine and heroine. On appeal, defendant challenged his convictions and sentence on multiple grounds. The court held that the for-cause striking of prospective jurors based on their perceived inability to accept an interpreter as the final arbiter of what was said or written did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; the district court's decision to strike the prospective jurors was not a manifest abuse of discretion and did not contravene the Sixth Amendment; Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS) records were admissible under the public records exception to hearsay; defendant's challenge to his conviction under an indictment that charged him with conspiracy to import and distribute "1 kilogram or more" of heroin and "5 kilograms or more" of cocaine failed because the lesser included offense was included in the charged offense and there was no variance; because defendant failed to provide a showing of good cause, his claim that the indictment was defective was waived; the court could not conclude that the district court judge committed plain error in giving the modified Allen charge after receiving two jury notes expressing an inability to reach a verdict; nor could the court conclude that the district court plainly erred by not, sua sponte, ordering a mistrial after approximately two days of jury deliberations; substantial evidence supported the verdict and the district court did not err in denying the motion for acquittal; the district court acted within its discretion in admitting testimony of a certain witness; and the district court did not commit clear error in finding, based on a preponderance of the evidence, that defendant was a manager or supervisor in the conspiracy; and the district court did not err in finding that five participants were involved pursuant to U.S.S.G. 3B.1(b). Accordingly, the convictions and sentence were affirmed.

by
Defendant appealed his conviction for illegal reentry after deportation. Defendant argued that during the time it took an officer to call the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), he was subjected to an unconstitutional seizure because calling ICE unlawfully prolonged the routine traffic stop. Thus, defendant appealed the district court's denial of his motion to suppress his fingerprints, which were obtained when he was later transported to an ICE office and questioned. Because the court concluded, under the totality of the circumstances, that the officer's call to ICE did not unreasonably prolong the seizure, the court affirmed the judgment.

by
Petitioner, a native and citizen of the Republic of Cameroon, petitioned for review of the BIA's order affirming the denial of her claims for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The court concluded that the IJ committed multiple legal errors where the IJ erroneously (1) applied the rules of evidence; (2) suggested that corroborative evidence required further corroboration; and (3) discredited documents as unauthenticated under the immigration regulations without providing petitioner an opportunity to authenticate them by other means and without otherwise providing sound, cogent reasons for rejecting them. The IJ's factual findings were not supported by substantial evidence, but by inaccurate perceptions of the record or by speculation and assumption. The court held that the BIA erred in failing to recognize the IJ's multiple errors concerning important aspects of petitioner's claims, rendering the BIA Order manifestly contrary to law and an abuse of discretion. The court granted the petition for review, vacated the BIA Order, and remanded for further proceedings.