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

In this court order, the Fourth Circuit certified the following question to the Supreme Court of Virginia: Under Virginia common law, can an individual be convicted of robbery by means of threatening to accuse the victim of having committed sodomy? View "United States v. White" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of a petition for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2255, holding that a conviction under South Carolina's carjacking statute, S.C. Code 16-3-1075, which prohibits taking or attempting to take a motor vehicle "by force and violence or by intimidation while the person is operating the vehicle or while the person is in the vehicle," is a violent felony predicate under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA).In this case, petitioner claims that "intimidation," as it is used in the carjacking statute, requires the threat of physical force against the person in the vehicle. However, the court explained that, although South Carolina courts have not explicitly interpreted the carjacking statute, the state has given every indication that it meant "intimidation" in its carjacking statute to require the use, attempted use or threat of physical force against the person in the vehicle. Therefore, the district court correctly concluded that South Carolina carjacking is a violent felony under the ACCA. View "United States v. Croft" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for attempted sex trafficking of a minor and three child pornography offenses. The court upheld the district court's denial of a Franks hearing to challenge the veracity of law enforcement's declarations in two warrant affidavits, because defendant failed to make a substantial preliminary showing that the law enforcement agent acted with the requisite intent in omitting a confidential informant's criminal history from the warrant affidavits. The court also held that substantial evidence supported defendant's attempt conviction where his words strongly corroborated his intent to recruit, entice, or solicit children to engage in commercial sex acts. The court further held that there was no error in the district court's application of a five-level sentencing enhancement under USSG 4B1.5(b) for being a repeat and dangerous sex offender against minors.However, the court vacated defendant's sentence because the district court should not have applied a four-level sentencing enhancement under USSG 2G1.1 for an offense involving a minor who had not attained the age of twelve years. The court explained that the district court erred in applying the enhancement, because neither subparagraph (A) or (B) of the application note defining "minor" for section 2G2.1 encompass a situation in which a private citizen represents that a fictitious child could be provided to engage in sexual conduct. View "United States v. Haas" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the legality of defendant's arrest under Maryland v. Pringle, 540 U.S. 366, 373 (2003), which held that when a law enforcement officer finds illegal drugs in an automobile that the officer has legally stopped and searched and none of the occupants claim ownership of the drugs, it is "entirely reasonable" for the officer to infer that all the automobile's occupants are in a common enterprise and therefore to arrest them on probable cause that they are committing a crime.In this case, defendant was a passenger in an automobile that was legally stopped and search, where officers found 300 grams of fentanyl in the vehicle. The court explained that the officers reasonably believed that, in the absence of any claim to owning it, defendant and the driver were in a common enterprise that involved possession of the fentanyl, and that such circumstances are sufficient to support particularized probable cause that the two were committing a crime under Pringle. View "United States v. Myers" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of habeas relief to petitioner under 28 U.S.C. 2254, rejecting petitioner's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). Petitioner contends that his trial counsel failed to call any forensic experts to testify on his behalf and asserted that such failure was not a strategic decision but was made out of counsel's ignorance of the availability of funding to pay experts.Even though the district court did not restrict its review by considering only the state court record, as required in the circumstances, but instead considered an affidavit of a forensic expert that petitioner presented for the first time in the district court, the court nonetheless agreed with the district court's conclusion that the expert failed to show prejudice with evidence or a proffer of evidence "of what a defensive forensic expert would have testified to and how that could have altered the trial." The court explained that the forensic expert only identified investigatory issues that he or another forensic expert could have explored and did not test or challenge any evidence actually presented to the jury so as to support a conclusion that testimony from him or another forensic expert could have made a difference. View "Vandross v. Stirling" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment followed by a lifetime of supervised release. On appeal, defendant challenges three special conditions of supervised release: the employment restriction, the Internet restriction, and the location restriction.The Fourth Circuit held that the employment restriction, requiring that defendant must not work in any type of employment without the prior approval of the probation officer, is overbroad and lacks a sufficient nexus to the nature and circumstances of the offense. However, the court upheld the Internet restriction and location restriction. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, and vacated and remanded in part. On remand, the district court is instructed to craft more precisely an employment restriction that bears a nexus to defendant's particular misconduct without jeopardizing the salient goal of safeguarding children's safety. View "United States v. Hamilton" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court's orders partially granting defendants' motions for sentence reductions pursuant to Section 404 of the First Step Act. In each case, the district court granted defendants' motions pursuant to a standard "AO 247" form in which the district court checked the box for "granted" and reduced the term of supervised release on each of defendants' sentences by one year. However, the district court did not alter the underlying sentences.Applying de novo review, the court held that the district court failed to provide individualized explanations to each defendant in the face of newly presented, post-sentencing conduct. The court agreed with defendants that their cases are factually similar to the defendants' cases in United States v. Martin, 916 F.3d 389 (4th Cir. 2019), and thus the court should vacate the district court's orders with instructions for the district court to provide individualized explanations consistent with Martin. The court explained that the presentation of post-sentencing mitigation evidence in each of defendants' motions is sufficient to rebut the Legree presumption that the district court, in fact, considered all of the relevant evidence. View "United States v. McDonald" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for seventeen financial crimes and affirmed defendant's 240-month sentence. Defendant's conviction stemmed from her efforts to induce individuals to invest in her website and from her spending large sums of money on personal expenses unrelated to the website.The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying defendant's August 29, 2018 continuance motion where defendant had made multiple changes to her legal team and trial counsel stated that he would be prepared. The court upheld the criminal forfeiture order where any error regarding the securities fraud counts did not affect defendant's substantial rights; the district court did not plainly err in considering defendant's ability to pay the forfeiture judgment in addition to the restitution judgment; and the criminal forfeiture is not unconstitutionally excessive under the Eighth Amendment. Finally, the court held that defendant's sentence is procedurally and substantively reasonable. In this case, the totality of the sentencing transcript demonstrates that the district court carried out its statutory duty by listening to the positions advanced by both parties and making an individualized finding pursuant to the 18 U.S.C. 3553 factors. Furthermore, the district court thoroughly addressed the section 3553 factors, ultimately varying downward from the guidelines' range. View "United States v. Bennett" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's 360-month sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a child. The court held that defendant's sentence is both procedurally and substantively reasonable. In this case, the district court did not err by failing to explain why it had rejected all of his non-frivolous arguments for a downward variance from the Guidelines range; the district court did not plainly err by applying a sentencing enhancement under USSG 2G2.1(b)(5) for violation 18 U.S.C. 2251(a) as "a parent, relative, or legal guardian of the minor involved in the offense;" and defendant's within-Guidelines sentence was substantively reasonable where the district court considered defendant's criminal history and his acceptance of responsibility, and did not impose an unreasonable sentence. View "United States v. Lester" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit vacated defendant's 13-year sentence and 5-year term of supervised release imposed after he pleaded guilty to Hobbs Act robbery and to use of a firearm in the course of a crime of violence. The court held that two financial conditions of supervised release that appeared in defendant's written judgment were not pronounced orally by the district court during his sentencing hearing. Therefore, under the court's recent decision in United States v. Rogers, 961 F.3d 291 (4th Cir. 2020), defendant was never sentenced to those conditions. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Singletary" on Justia Law