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

Defendant appealed the denial of his motion for a sentence reduction under Section 404 of the First Step Act. Defendant argued that the district court abused its discretion when it chose to retain his original sentence despite reducing his Guidelines range to account for his erroneous designation as a career offender.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the First Step Act does not permit a district court to recalculate a defendant’s benchmark Guidelines range “in any way other than to reflect the retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act.” Concepcion v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 2389, 2402 n.6 (2022). Arguments based on other changes in law must be considered after determining the benchmark Guidelines range that will “anchor” the proceeding. Here, the Fair Sentencing Act did not affect Defendant’s original Guidelines range. The district court considered Defendant’s arguments and provided an adequate explanation for retaining his original sentence. The court explained that given that starting point, the district court’s retention of his original sentence was both procedurally and substantively reasonable. View "US v. David Troy, III" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of two firearm possession offenses in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 922(g). In determining Defendant’s sentence, the trial court applied the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”) sentence enhancement, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 924(e)(1), based on Defendant’s prior state felony convictions. Defendant moved to vacate and correct his sentence pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 2255, challenging the sentencing court’s application of the ACCA enhancement. After concluding that Defendant’s three Virginia robbery convictions qualified as predicate “violent felonies” under Section 924(e), the district court denied his motion.   The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s order denying Defendant’s Section 2255 motion and remanded for further proceedings. The court explained that while Defendant’s appeal of that decision was pending, the Fourth Circuit held that Virginia common-law robbery is not a violent felony for purposes of Section 924(e). Thus, the court concluded that White controls this case and precludes Defendant’s robbery convictions from qualifying as valid ACCA predicates. View "US v. Joseph Williams" on Justia Law

Defendant entered the United Stated without authorization in 2004. He was then convicted of malicious wounding in Virginia and was deported back to El Salvador. Defendant later re-entered the United States before being convicted of another crime in 2020. He was indicted for illegal entry. moved to dismiss that indictment, arguing that the five year statute of limitations on his prosecution had run and that his crime of malicious wounding was not a deportable offense. The district court rejected Defendant's claims.On appeal, Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of Defendant's collateral attack of his removal order, finding that Defendant entered the United States without authorization, committed a deportable offense, re-entered again illegally, and then committed another crime. The court explained that Defendant's "case falls right at the heart of what Congress sought to criminalize and the executive branch seeks to stop with the illegal reentry statute of 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1326." View "US v. Omar Alas" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court’s dismissal of his motion for post-conviction relief under 28 U.S.C. Section 2255. A jury found Defendant guilty of one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine and heroin, as well as one count of attempted possession with intent to distribute cocaine and heroin. At sentencing, the district court deemed these offenses “controlled substance offense[s]” under Sections 4B1.1 and 4B1.2—the career offender provisions—of the Sentencing Guidelines. Defendant also had past convictions for conspiracy to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. Section 846 and assault. The district court considered the former to be a controlled substance offense and the latter to be a crime of violence under the career offender provisions. The district court applied the career offender enhancement to his sentence. While Defendant’s appeal was pending, he moved for a new trial based on newly discovered. The district court granted the motion, and the government appealed. On remand, the government moved to reinstate the judgment of conviction and Defendant’s sentence, to which Defendant’s counsel consented. Defendant now argues that, on remand, his counsel rendered ineffective assistance.   The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s judgment and remanded the case to the district court for resentencing. The court held that Defendant’s counsel rendered deficient performance by failing to make this objection. This failure resulted in prejudice to Defendant, whose 16-year sentence far exceeded the high end of what the Guidelines range would have been without the career offender enhancement. View "US v. Germaine Cannady" on Justia Law

Defendant filed a federal habeas petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Section 2254, raising constitutional challenges to his death sentence in South Carolina state court. In 2021, the Fourth Circuit held that Defendant’s death sentence was constitutionally defective because his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance during sentencing. In reaching that conclusion, the court relied in part on evidence from an evidentiary hearing a magistrate judge conducted during federal habeas proceedings. Both Defendant and the State of South Carolina (“the State”) asked the court to consider that evidence when evaluating Defendant’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims. The State appealed to the Supreme Court, which granted the State’s petition for certiorari, vacated the court’s 2021 judgment, and remanded for further consideration in light of its decision in Shinn v. Ramirez, 142 S. Ct. 1718 (2022).   The Fourth Circuit reaffirm its prior decision, holding that Defendant’s trial counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance. Accordingly, the court directed the district court to issue the writ of habeas corpus unless the State grants Defendant a new sentencing hearing within a reasonable time. The court vacated and remanded the district court’s order dismissing Defendant’s habeas petition. The court explained that nothing in Shinn requires the court to excuse the State’s forfeiture here. Here, the State abandoned the Section 2254(e)(2) argument as soon as the magistrate judge recommended denying Defendant relief on the merits and actually relied on the new evidence when arguing that trial counsel was not constitutionally ineffective. This “suggests that the State ‘strategically’ withheld the defense or chose to relinquish it.” View "Sammie Stokes v. Bryan Stirling" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography and was sentenced to five years in prison followed by five years of supervised release. The sentencing court later agreed to transfer Defendant’s supervision to South Carolina so long as he consented to new conditions. When the probation officer told Defendant’s treatment provider, the provider responded that Cohen’s behavior violated the program’s pornography rules and would be raised at an upcoming group therapy session. The district court directed probation to issue a warrant for Defendant’s arrest for violating the terms of his supervised release. At the revocation hearing, Defendant admitted trading photos of his erect penis for pictures of undressed women during sexually explicit conversations but argued his behavior did not violate his supervised release conditions. The district court revoked Defendant’s release. The district court sentenced Defendant to time served followed by lifetime supervision, during which he would be subject to various special conditions.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed the revocation of Defendant’s supervised release and the imposition of lifetime supervision. The court vacated the first clause of special condition eleven and remanded for entry of a modified judgment striking that clause. The court affirmed the district court’s judgment in all other respects and remanded for further proceedings. The court reasoned that because the district court identified no other basis for concluding Defendant violated the participation condition, its determination on that point was legally erroneous. View "US v. Marshall Cohen" on Justia Law

Defendant was a detective in Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force, a unit charged with investigating firearms-related crimes. After a trial where the government showed Defendant and some of his colleagues stole money, drugs, and other items on the job, a jury convicted him of Hobbs Act robbery and racketeering offenses. The district court sentenced Defendant to 18 years of imprisonment, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. This appeal challenges the district court’s later-imposed restitution order. Defendant claimed the restitution order is unwarranted and unsupported. The people to whom the court ordered Defendant to make restitution both admitted to selling drugs, and one said at least some of the stolen cash came from illegal drug sales. Defendant argued these people were not “victims” under 18 U.S.C. Section 3663A(a)(2) because “[t]he proceeds of illegal activity are not the property of the person who obtained the funds through that activity” and the government failed to prove that either the cash or personal property was “untainted.”   The Fourth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that although one of the people to whom Defendant was ordered to make restitution admitted some of the stolen cash was drug proceeds, the same person insisted the rest was lawfully earned from his job as a painter. Defendant, in contrast, suggests all the stolen cash and property were drug proceeds. The restitution statutes supply no rules for how district courts are to resolve these sorts of questions. The court wrote that, in the end, “no amount of policy talk can overcome plain statutory text.” View "US v. Marcus Taylor" on Justia Law

In 2015, a jury convicted Petitioner of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a “crime of violence”—in Petitioner’s case, attempted Hobbs Act robbery— in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 924(c). Petitioner’s Section 924(c) conviction (and the associated ten-year prison sentence) is no longer valid.   Having previously sought relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Section 2255, Petitioner now moves for authorization to file a second or successive Section 2255 motion to vacate his Section 924(c) conviction. The court granted Petitioner’s authorization motion, finding that he meets the standard for filing a second or successive motion set forth in Section 2255(h)(2). The court explained that Petitioner must “make a prima facie showing that” his claim satisfies the Section 2255(h) gatekeeping test. The parties agree that Petitioner has made a prima facie showing that his Davis claim satisfies Section 2255(h)(2), which requires his second or successive motion to contain “a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable.” Petitioner and the Government contend that Thomas, wherein the Fourth Circuit has held that petitioner’s Davis claim met the Section 2255(h)(2) requirements, is on all fours with the instant case. View "In re: Kenneth Graham" on Justia Law

Prior to Defendant’s criminal trial for transferring obscene material to a minor, the district court relied on Federal Rule of Evidence 403 to exclude evidence that the recipient of the allegedly obscene material was Miller’s fourteen-year-old sister. The Government appealed, asserting that the court abused its discretion in excluding the evidence because it relates to elements of the offense and is necessary for the Government to tell the complete story of how the crime occurred.   The court, in considering the evidence’s high probative value and minimal risk of unfair prejudice, found that the district court plainly abused its discretion in excluding the evidence. The court explained that for the Government to tell a complete story of Defendant’s crime that “satisfies the jurors’ expectations,” the Government must tell the jury how he knew the victim before presenting the allegedly obscene letter that resulted from his contact with her. The court concluded that the probative value of the Government’s evidence is not substantially outweighed by risk of unfair prejudice. Moreover, in view of the foregoing, the court held that the district court’s error in excluding the evidence warrants reversal as a plain abuse of discretion. View "US v. Darrin Miller" on Justia Law

Defendant was arrested for various sexual exploitation offenses related to photographs he took of his daughter after law enforcement executed a search warrant at his home, leading to the discovery of certain photographs. Defendant was ultimately convicted and appealed.On appeal, Defendant challenged the district court's denial of his motion to suppress, arguing that the warrant affidavit lacked probable cause because the conduct described occurred five to eight years earlier and that the good faith exception did not apply. Defendant also challenged the admission of video evidence of the complaining witness. Finally, he challenged the application of a sentencing enhancement under Sec. 4B1.5(b)(1) of the Sentencing Guidelines based on "a pattern of activity involving prohibited sexual conduct."The Fourth Circuit affirmed. Regarding Defendant's motion to suppress, the court held that the district court appropriately concluded that probable cause existed, given the nature of the allegations and the type of evidence that was the object of the search. Regarding the challenged evidence, the court explained that the videos were "inextricably intertwined" with evidence of the charged offense. Finally, the court rejected Defendant's claim of error regarding the sentencing enhancement, finding that the district court did not commit clear error in finding Defendant's conduct showed a "pattern of activity" of prohibited sexual conduct. View "US v. William Ebert" on Justia Law