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

Defendant pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and subsequently appealed the district court's application of two sentencing enhancements. The court found that defendant's prior conviction for second-degree rape under a North Carolina statute is not categorically a crime of violence under U.S.S.G. 4B1.2(a)(2)'s residual clause. Because the district court erred in characterizing defendant’s prior conviction as a crime of violence and thereby enhancing his base offense level for illegally possessing a firearm, the court vacated defendant's sentence and remanded for resentencing. The court also concluded that U.S.S.G. 3C1.2 is intended to capture “behavior that could be viewed as an obstruction of justice,” and thus requires that a defendant be aware that he or she is fleeing from a law enforcement officer. The court vacated this enhancement and remanded for the district court to clarify whether defendant knew he was being pursued by law enforcement. View "United States v. Shell" on Justia Law

Defendant, convicted of drug offenses, appealed the district court's revocation of two concurrent terms of supervised release and sentence of consecutive terms of imprisonment, followed by new concurrent terms of supervised release. The court concluded that the district court did not clearly err in finding that defendant possessed a firearm, and so revocation of his supervised release was not an abuse of discretion. Further, the district court also imposed a reasonable revocation sentence where the factors the district court relied on closely track the language of both Chapter 7 and section 3553(a) of the Guidelines. The district court sentenced defendant to a term of imprisonment within that range. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Padgett" on Justia Law

Plaintiff pled guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to a mandatory minimum fifteen-year term of imprisonment under the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. 924(e). On appeal, defendant argued that the Shepard-approved documents upon which the district court relied for the ACCA enhancement are fatally ambiguous as to whether he committed his predicate armed robbery offenses on different occasions. The court held that the government failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that defendant’s prior felonies were separate and distinct criminal episodes for purposes of the ACCA because there are patent internal inconsistencies infecting the underlying state court documents as to the dates when the robberies occurred. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for resentencing. The court need not address defendant's alternative argument. View "United States v. Span" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his revocation sentence. At issue was whether the district court erred in determining, based on defendant’s status as a recidivist drug offender, that certain drug offenses committed during his supervised release were Grade B violations under the Sentencing Commission’s advisory policy statements for violations of probation and supervised release. The court held that the district court did not err in concluding that defendant's prior drug convictions increased the extent to which his marijuana offenses during supervised release were “punishable” under Section 844(a). Thus, the district court correctly determined that defendant’s multiple acts of possessing marijuana during his supervised release constituted Grade B violations under the Guidelines’ Chapter 7 advisory policy statements. View "United States v. Wynn" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to reentering the United States as an illegal alien and the district court imposed a twelve-level sentencing enhancement based on his prior felonious conviction for unlawfully transporting aliens. On appeal, defendant argued that the Court's ruling in United States v. Simmons precludes the enhancement because the Guidelines for his prior conviction under the then-mandatory Sentencing Guidelines was zero to six months' imprisonment. The court affirmed the sentence, concluding that the district court did not err in imposing the enhancement because the judge who sentenced defendant for the prior conviction had discretion to sentence him for up to five years. View "United States v. Bercian-Flores" on Justia Law

Defendant, a board-certified dermatologist, was indicted for executing a "scheme or artifice to defraud" when billing public and private healthcare benefit programs and related offenses. The district court granted plaintiff's motion to strike as unduly prejudicial certain financial details alleged in the indictment, a motion in limine to exclude evidence of post-scheme conduct the government intended to introduce to show defendant's consciousness of guilt; and a motion in limine to exclude all evidence of the scheme that was not directly related to one of the 53 specifically charged executions. The court concluded that the district court abused its discretion in limiting the government’s proof to that which is directly relevant to one or more of the 53 executions charged in the indictment, without taking into account the relevance of uncharged conduct to the alleged overarching scheme; the district court abused its discretion because it misapplied Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) and 403 in excluding evidence of defendant's post-scheme conduct; and the district court abused its discretion where, because a violation of the healthcare fraud statute requires knowing and willful conduct, the government must establish defendant's intent to defraud. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "United States v. Bajoghli" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with possession with intent to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin. If convicted, Defendant faced a mandatory minimum penalty of twenty years’ imprisonment. For several months, Defendant refused to plead guilty. The morning of his scheduled trial, however, Defendant accepted the government’s plea offer. Defendant subsequently filed a pro se motion to withdraw his guilty plea on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel, arguing that his plea had been involuntary because he had been pressured to plead guilty by the district court. The Fourth Circuit vacated and remanded for further proceedings, holding that the district court committed plain error by impermissibly participating in the plea discussions. Remanded. View "United States v. Braxton" on Justia Law

In 2006, Appellant pled guilty to three counts of distribution of crack cocaine after previously being convicted of a felony drug offense. In 2007, the district court found Appellant to be a career offender and sentenced him to 262 months’ imprisonment. In 2011, Appellant filed a petition for collateral release pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255, arguing that the district court erred in sentencing him as a career offender. While Appellant’s petition was pending, the Fourth Circuit decided United States v. Simmons. Appellant amended his section 2255 petition, arguing that his career offender designation was nullified under Simmons. The district court denied the petition. The Fourth Circuit affirmed, holding that Appellant’s section 2255 petition did not present a claim that was cognizable on collateral review. View "United States v. Foote" on Justia Law

After a jury-waived trial, a Virginia state judge convicted Petitioner on charges of brand larceny and breaking and entering. The state appellate courts denied Petitioner’s direct appeal, and the state supreme court denied Petitioner’s habeas petition. Petitioner subsequently filed this federal habeas petition. The district court granted habeas relief on one claim, concluding that the state supreme court unreasonably applied Strickland v. Washington in rejecting Petitioner’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim. As a resulting, the court vacated Petitioner’s convictions and sentence. The Fourth Circuit vacated the portion of the district court’s order granting habeas relief and remanded for dismissal of the petition, holding that the Virginia Supreme Court did not unreasonably conclude that Petitioner failed to establish Strickland prejudice. View "Jones v. Clarke" on Justia Law

Defendant, a native and citizen of Honduras, was convicted under North Carolina law of two counts of second-degree kidnapping. Defendant was subsequently removed from the United States to Honduras. Defendant reentered the United States illegally at some point when he was arrested for possession of a controlled substance and assault and battery in Virginia. Defendant subsequently pleaded guilty to a single-count indictment for illegal reentry into the United States. The district court concluded that a sixteen-level enhancement should be applied to Defendant’s sentence for reentry after a prior conviction for a “crime of violence.” Defendant appealed, arguing that his North Carolina crime did not constitute a crime of violence. The Fourth Circuit affirmed, holding that, under North Carolina law, a conviction for second-degree kidnapping does constitute a crime of violence, and as such, the addition of a sixteen-level enhancement to Defendant’s sentence was proper. View "United States v. Flores-Granados" on Justia Law