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

Appellant appealed his convictions of six counts of distributing and conspiring to distribute cocaine, cocaine base, and heroin when the convictions stemmed from the operation of a local drug organization known as the Face Mob Family. At issue was whether the district court erred in denying appellant's motion to dismiss for Speedy Trial Act violations as a result of denying his motion for severance; whether the government's delay in filing a superseding indictment violated appellant's Fifth Amendment right to due process as well as his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial; and whether the sentence was procedurally and substantively reasonable. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion to sever where appellant failed to articulate any injury to a specific trial right and where he was not entitled to severance merely because separate trials would more likely result in acquittal or where the evidence against one defendant was not as strong as that against another. The court also held that there was no constitutional violation in how the government handled the superseding indictment where appellant failed to point to any specific prejudice beyond a generalized assertion that the superseding indictment gave the government more time for trial. The court further held that the sentence was procedurally and substantively reasonable where the district court considered that appellant had distributed voluminous quantities of drugs, was a career offender, and was the leader and organizer of criminal activity which involved five or more participants and used violence to advance its goals.

Defendant was convicted of five electronic communications offenses when she began an anonymous electronic campaign of harassment against a former romantic partner. Defendant challenged her convictions and sentence on numerous grounds. The court held that the felony convictions of Count 2 and Count 4 must be vacated and reduced to misdemeanors where both Counts created a merger problem which implicated double jeopardy principles and where the indictment failed to establish any crime in Count 4. The court also held that there was sufficient evidence to convict defendant on Count 1 and Count 6 where the record showed that she conspired unlawfully to access computers and electronic storage facilities containing unopened e-mails for the purpose of accessing other computers and harassing, annoying, and harming the victim and his family and where the illegal access to voicemail facilitated the harassing telephone calls by supplying the ammunition that made the calls harassing and threatening. The court rejected defendant's claim that her Sixth Amendment rights were violated where the district court granted her request to represent herself. The court further rejected defendant's remaining sentencing arguments and affirmed the judgment of the district court. Finally, in light of Count 2 and Count 4, the court vacated defendant's sentence and remanded for resentencing.

Respondent appealed the district court's grant of a writ of habeas corpus to the petitioner who was twice convicted of raping and murdering a victim when seven other men allegedly were concurrently involved in the rape and murder of the victim. At issue was whether the petitioner was entitled to the writ of habeas corpus issued by the district court where petitioner was ineffectively assisted by counsel when counsel failed to move to suppress petitioner's confession after petitioner invoked his right to answer no further questions. The court affirmed the writ of habeas corpus and held that counsel's failure to suppress the confession rendered suspect the jury's verdict.

Petitioner appealed convictions for the 1970 murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters and secured pre-filing authorization from the court for a successive 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion for habeas corpus relief where he asserted a Fifth Amendment due process claim based on the newly discovered evidence of former U.S. Deputy Marshal Jim Britt ("Britt claim"). Shortly after petitioner presented his section 2255 motion, the results of DNA testing previously authorized by the court became available and petitioner sought to add a second claim to the section 2255 motion to raise a freestanding innocence claim ("DNA claim"). The DNA motion also urged the district to consider the DNA test results as a part of the "evidence as a whole" in assessing the Britt claim under section 2255. At issue was whether the district court erred in denying petitioner's section 2255 motion where it assessed the Britt claim under the standard of 28 U.S.C. 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii), where it refused to consider the DNA claim on the ground that petitioner failed to secure additional pre-filing authorization from the court, and where it refused to consider the DNA test results and other evidence. The court remanded and vacated the district court's opinion where the district court erred in assessing the Britt claim under section 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii) rather than section 2255(h)(1), the district court erred by taking an overly restrictive view of what constituted "evidence as a whole" when it prohibited expansion of the record to include evidence received after trial and after the filing of petitioner's section 2255 motion, and the district court possessed jurisdiction over the separate DNA claim insofar as petitioner had timely and appropriately sought to add it to his pending section 2255 motion.

Defendant, while on federal supervised release, absconded and remained a fugitive for 13 years. After his apprehension, the district court found that defendant had committed multiple supervised release violations from the time he absconded until he was retaken and thus, revoked his supervised release and sentenced him to separate concurrent custody terms. At issue was whether the district court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate the violations associated with the sentences where the sentences were not charged in a warrant or summons before the scheduled expiration of his supervised release term. The court affirmed the order of revocation and the concurrent sentences and held that defendant's supervised release terms were tolled during the 13 years he was a fugitive and it recommenced when the district court was able to exercise supervision over him. Therefore, because defendant had approximately three years remaining on his supervised release term, the court had the authority to revoke his supervised release for the violations set forth in the addenda.

Defendant appealed two convictions related to the mailing of communications containing threats against various persons, including the President of the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 876(c). At issue was whether Counts Two and Seven of the seven-count indictment were fatally defective for failure to properly allege section 876(c) offenses, whether the evidence was sufficient to prove either offense, and whether both charges were constructively amended such that defendant was deprived of his Fifth Amendment right to indictment by a grand jury. The court held that Count Two sufficiently alleged a violation of section 876(c) where the person or entity to whom the threatening communication was addressed was not an essential element of the offense and that Count Seven sufficiently alleged a violation of section 876(c) where it sufficiently alleged the Enhancement Element. The court also held that there was no defect in the proof of either offenses where the jury was entitled to find that the envelope was "addressed to" the Marshals Service, but that the "threat to injure" was "addressed to" the President and others. The court further held that the court's ruling on the propriety of the charges and the supporting evidence rendered defendant's contention, that the charges were constructively amended, as meritless.