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

Defendant entered a conditional plea of guilty to one count of knowingly possessing three firearms following a misdemeanor conviction for domestic violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9), pursuant to a plea agreement that reserved his right to appeal the district court's denial of his motion to dismiss. At issue was whether defendant's conviction under section 922(g)(9) survived his as-applied constitutional challenge under the Second Amendment. The court held that the government had carried its burden of establishing a reasonable fit between the substantial government objective of reducing domestic gun violence and keeping firearms out of the hands of persons who have been convicted of a domestic violence crime and persons who have threatened the use of a deadly weapon. Accordingly, the court held that, on defendant's as-applied challenge under the Second Amendment, section 922(g)(9) satisfied the intermediate scrutiny standard and the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of having used and carried a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime in violation of 18 U.S.C. 924(c)(1). Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his motion to suppress physical evidence recovered in search of his residence and statements he made to the police. The court concluded that the district court properly found that the search warrant was issued based on probable cause supplied by an officer's warrant affidavit. The court also concluded that the officers' traffic stop and detention of defendant did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Finally, the court rejected defendant's remaining Fourth and Fifth Amendment claims. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.