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

Defendant appeals the district court’s order denying relief on her 28 U.S.C. Section 2255 motion to vacate, set aside, or correct her sentence. Defendant claimed that her trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to move to suppress information obtained from a search warrant that relied, in part, on the Government’s warrantless procurement of certain data from her cell phone service provider.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that because the Government relied in good faith on court orders issued in accordance with the Federal Stored Communications Act (“SCA”), 18 U.S.C. Section 2703 et. seq., did not request the data in its subpoenas, and the use of a subpoena to obtain the data was lawful at the time; the court held the district court’s admission of the challenged evidence must be sustained. Thus, any motion to suppress filed before Defendant’s trial would not have been meritorious. View "US v. Gloria Taylor" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Defendant on two counts of lying to the FBI, violating 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2). The district court sentenced him to concurrent 60-month prison terms. On appeal, Defendant challenged (1) the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss Count Two of his indictment as multiplicitous, (2) the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the jury’s verdict, (3) the district court’s allegedly prejudicial statements to the jury, (4) the district court’s refusal to give an entrapment instruction, and (5) the district court’s application of a terrorism enhancement at sentencing.   The Fourth Circuit reversed the district court’s denial of the motion to dismiss Count Two, vacated the judgment, and remanded for resentencing. The court otherwise affirmed. The court concluded that Defendant’s false statements denying relevant knowledge could have influenced the FBI’s investigation. The court further wrote that Defendant claims the district court erred in applying the terrorism enhancement because it failed to expressly find specific intent. However, the court explained it need not delve into this question given that the court is remanding for resentencing because of the district court’s error on multiplicity. On remand, the district court can address the merits of Defendant’s claim regarding the terrorism enhancement. View "US v. Alexander Smith" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court’s order denying his First Step Act motion, which asked the court to reduce his completed sentence of incarceration or retroactively declare that he is a misdemeanant rather than a felon. Insofar as Defendant has moved for a reduction of his already-completed sentence, his request is moot because he has no continuing interest in serving less time on a sentence that he is no longer serving.   The Fourth Circuit remanded the case to the district court with directions that it be dismissed. The court explained that insofar as Defendant has moved for a reduction of his already-completed sentence, his request is moot because he has no continuing interest in serving less time on a sentence that he is no longer serving. Insofar as Defendant has moved for a retroactive reclassification of his offense from a felony to a misdemeanor, the court was powerless to grant relief because no statute authorized such reclassification. View "US v. Darwyn Payne" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to a drug offense and a related firearms offense in violation of federal law. He was sentenced as a career offender under the Sentencing Guidelines based on two prior state convictions: a 2007 conviction for assault with intent to kill (AWIK) and a 2013 conviction for what the district court determined was possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute (PWID). On appeal, Defendant challenged his career-offender status and the resulting sentence. He first argued that the district court erred in relying on inconclusive state-court sentencing documents to find that Defendant’s 2013 drug conviction was, in fact, a conviction for PWID. Second, Defendant questions whether his 2007 AWIK conviction remains a Guidelines crime of violence following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Borden v. United States. 
 The Fourth Circuit affirmed. The court wrote that the district court did not err in relying on Defendant’s state-court sentencing sheet to determine that his 2013 conviction qualified as a controlled substance offense. And because Defendant did not contest that his AWIK conviction qualified as a predicate offense in his initial briefing with this Court, that argument is waived. View "US v. Cory Boyd" on Justia Law

While serving his federal sentence, Appellant asked the warden of the facility where he was incarcerated to file a motion for compassionate release on his behalf. After the warden denied his request, Appellant moved for compassionate release in federal district court. In addition to the arguments for compassionate release that Appellant presented to the warden, which were related to his medical condition, Appellant’s motion for compassionate release in the district court included arguments that his convictions and sentence were unlawful. The district court denied Appellant’s motion.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that while it agreed with Appellant that he was not required to include the arguments about his convictions and sentence in his request for compassionate release to the warden, the court agreed with the district court that Appellant cannot challenge the validity of his convictions and sentence through a compassionate release motion. View "US v. Dwayne Ferguson" on Justia Law

Defendant was indicted on one count of unlawfully possessing a firearm. The firearms at issue were uncovered during a traffic stop. Defendant was traveling in the backseat of a vehicle when the vehicle was stopped by the officer for having an inoperable taillight. After printing a warning citation for the driver, the officer used his canine to sniff around the vehicle and then conducted a full search when the dog alerted, uncovering two firearms in Defendant’s backpack. The district court denied Defendant’s motion to suppress evidence of the firearms, concluding that the officer had reasonable suspicion to extend the stop and conduct the search.   On appeal, Defendant argued that the district court erred by (1) denying her motion to transfer the proceedings to another district pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 21(a) and (2) finding that the officer had reasonable suspicion to extend the traffic stop.   The Fourth Circuit reversed the district court’s order denying Defendant’s motion to suppress, vacated Defendant’s conviction and sentence, and remanded to the district court. The court held that (1) Defendant’s motion to transfer was appropriately denied and (2) the officer lacked a reasonable, articulable factual basis for extending the traffic stop to conduct the dog sniff. View "US v. Teresa Miller" on Justia Law

Respondent has long struggled with mental illness and a proclivity to violent outbursts. In 2017, Williams assaulted a security guard in Portland, Oregon—a federal crime because it happened at a Social Security office. Respondent pleaded guilty and was sentenced to just over four years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. Federal prisoners on the cusp of being released may be civilly committed if they are “presently suffering from a mental disease or defect as a result of which [their] release would create a substantial risk” to the person or property of others. Here, the primary question is whether—in making such a risk assessment—a court must consider any terms of supervision that would govern the prisoner’s conduct post-release.   The Fourth Circuit held that a court must consider any terms of supervision that would govern the prisoner’s conduct post-release. Thus, because the record offers no assurances the district court appropriately considered the terms of Respondent’s supervised release before ordering him committed, the Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s order and remanded for further proceedings. View "US v. Nathaniel Williams" on Justia Law

Defendant filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2255, challenging his conviction for using a destructive device in furtherance of a crime of violence. The district court denied his motion and Defendant appealed.The Fourth Circuit reversed, finding that the federal arson statute which served as the predicate for Defendant's Sec. 924(c) conviction is not categorically a crime of violence. Because the statute Defendant was convicted under criminalized the arson of property fully owned by the defendant, and not just that of the property “of another” as required by Sec. 924(c). View "US v. Cecil Davis" on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted of second-degree murder in the Circuit Court for the City of Newport News, Virginia. After exhausting direct appeals to the Virginia Court of Appeals and the Virginia Supreme Court, Petitioner filed a pro se writ of habeas corpus in the Newport News Circuit Court. That court dismissed the petition. Petitioner, proceeding pro se, unsuccessfully appealed the dismissal to the Virginia Supreme Court. After that, Petitioner filed a 28 U.S.C. Section 2254 petition in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The district court ordered the state to file a responsive pleading to show cause why the writ should not be granted. It also instructed the state to treat the order as a “request that the records of the state criminal trial and habeas corpus proceedings, if pertinent and available, be forwarded to the Clerk’s Office in Alexandria, Virginia. Petitioner appealed the denial of Rule 60(b) motion. When the district court sent its records to the Fourth Circuit, the state habeas records were not included.   The Fourth Circuit vacated and remanded to the district court with the following instructions: (1) the state must file a Rule 5-compliant Answer; (2) the district court shall determine if it has the records it requested—those “pertinent and available”— and, in this inquiry, address the state habeas records that were missing when the file was transferred to the Fourth Circuit; and (3) finally, the district court shall reconsider the state’s motion to dismiss, considering the complete answer and the records it first requested. View "Arthur Sanford v. Harold Clarke" on Justia Law

Defendant was sentenced to 22 years for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and for three substantive wire-fraud counts, based on the three wire transmissions sent to victims in Maryland.The Fourth Circuit affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. The court explained that Defendant hatched a massive fraudulent scheme that targeted victims in the United States using wires in the United States. Even though the court agreed that the wire-fraud statute does not apply extraterritorially, its focus is the misuse of wires in the United States for fraudulent purposes, so Defendant was convicted of the domestic act of using wires in the United States. The district court did not err in refusing to impose the extraordinary remedy of granting use immunity to witnesses, and the court sufficiently cleansed the proceeding of any prejudice caused by the juror who overheard outside the discussion of the defendant. Any error based on the district court’s consideration of Defendant’s extraterritorial conduct at sentencing was harmless. But the district court too broadly imposed restitution, so the court remanded for a new restitution order. Finally, the court did not plainly err when imposing supervised release conditions, and the conditions were both reasonable and constitutional. The conviction and sentence are therefore affirmed except for the restitution order. View "US v. Lee Elbaz" on Justia Law