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

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion based on ineffective assistance of counsel. The court held that precedent at the time of defendant's 2013 sentencing did not strongly suggest that his career offender enhancement was improper, and thus counsel's failure to raise that argument did not constitute deficient performance under Strickland v. Washington. View "United States v. Morris" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit alleging that defendant unlawfully accessed messages in plaintiff's web-based email account in violation of the Virginia Computer Crimes Act and the federal Stored Communications Act (SCA). The Fourth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's claims under the Virginia Act, holding that the district court improperly applied the doctrine of collateral estoppel to bar reconsideration of whether plaintiff adequately alleged that his property or person was injured within the meaning of the Virginia Act. The court also held that the district court incorrectly determined that plaintiff failed to plausibly allege injury to person or property within the meaning of the Virginia Act.The court held that previously opened and delivered emails stored in a web-based email client were "electronic storage" for purposes of the SCA, 18 U.S.C. 2510(17)(B). The court distinguished that opened and delivered emails stored by a web-based email service did not fall within the plain language of Subsection (A). Accordingly, the district court erroneously granted defendant's motion for summary judgment by concluding otherwise. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Hately v. Watts" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action against Officers Strickland and Heroux, alleging that the officers violated plaintiff's Fourth Amendment rights by using deadly force while arresting him. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of the officers' motions for summary judgment, holding that the officers started or continued to fire on plaintiff after they were no longer in the trajectory of plaintiff's car and thus violated plaintiff's Fourth Amendment right to freedom from excessive force. The court also held that it was clearly established that using deadly force against plaintiff after the officers were no longer in the car's trajectory would violate plaintiff's right to freedom from excessive force. View "Williams v. Strickland" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit vacated defendant's revocation sentence and remanded for resentencing. In this case, the district court determined that defendant committed the North Carolina offense of assault with a deadly weapon on a government official and four other violations of his release. The court held, however, that defendant's conviction for assault with a deadly weapon on a government official was categorically not a crime of violence and the district court erred by classifying defendant's supervised release violations as a Grade A violation. Therefore, this error anchored defendant's revocation sentence to an improperly calculated Guidelines range. View "United States v. Simmons" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's 70-month sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to one count of possession of a firearm by a felon. Defendant argued that his prior North Carolina conviction did not qualify as a conviction for a crime of violence and that the district court erred in so concluding. The court held that any error that the district court might have committed in treating defendant's North Carolina conviction as a crime-of-violence predicate was harmless because the district court would have imposed the same 70-month sentence regardless of how it resolved the disputed Guidelines issue and the 70-month sentence would, in the circumstances, have been reasonable. View "United States v. Mills" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and his mandatory minimum 15 year sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act. The Fourth Circuit affirmed in light of United States v. Massenburg, 564 F.3d 337 (4th Cir. 2009), which imposed an extreme burden on a defendant seeking plain error review of a court's failure to provide correct sentencing information before accepting a guilty plea. The court held that defendant failed to demonstrate plain error affecting his substantial rights. In this case, defendant did not make any statement on the record indicating that he would have proceeded to trial if he had been given the correct sentencing information. Nor did he express surprise at the statement in the PSR of a potential ACCA designation or seek to withdraw his plea on that basis. Finally, the government proffered strong evidence supporting the felon in possession charge. View "United States v. Lockhart" on Justia Law

Defendant challenged the validity of his guilty plea for aggravated identity theft, and various aspects of sentencing for possession of at least fifteen access devices with intent to defraud and possession of device-making equipment with intent to defraud. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment and held that defendant never objected to purported errors in the Rule 11 proceeding, and his challenges on appeal were insubstantial and did not come close to meeting a plain error standard. The court also held that the district court did not err in calculating the amount of loss; even if there was error in calculating the amount of loss, it was harmless; the district court did not err in concluding that the eighteen persons identified were victims; and the district court did not clearly err by denying defendant an acceptance of responsibility reduction under USSG 3E1.1(a). View "United States v. Carver" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court's denial of defendants' motions for sentence reductions under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(2). Although there is no right to a sentence reduction under section 582(c)(2), a district court cannot ignore a host of mitigation evidence and summarily deny a motion to reduce a sentence and leave both the defendant and the appellate court in the dark as to the reasons for its decision. In this case, the court held that the district court failed to provide defendants with individualized explanations for its rulings on their respective motions. Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Martin" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for conspiracy to commit drug trafficking, conspiracy to use firearms while drug trafficking, attempted possession of heroin with intent to distribute, using or carrying a firearm while drug trafficking, and three counts of federal programs bribery. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the conspiracy, attempted possession and firearms convictions, but vacated the federal programs bribery convictions. The court held that the government failed to produce evidence from which a jury could find that defendant's services to the drug trafficking organization had a value of $5,000 or more. Because defendant's sentence could not be affected by the vacation of his federal programs bribery convictions, the court need not remand for resentencing. View "United States v. Tillmon" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Young of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a designated foreign terrorist organization, 18 U.S.C. 2339B, and two counts of attempting to obstruct justice, 18 U.S.C. 1512(c)(2). The Fourth Circuit affirmed the material support conviction, vacated the obstruction convictions, and remanded for resentencing. The court upheld the district court’s admission of the Nazi and white supremacist paraphernalia found during a search of Young’s home; the rejection of an entrapment defense; various evidentiary rulings; and the certification of an expert witness on militant Islamist and Nazi “convergence.” The evidence was insufficient to prove the nexus and foreseeability requirements of the obstruction statute; the government was required to prove Young “corruptly” attempted to “obstruct[], influence[], or impede[]” “an official proceeding. In neither specified situation in which Young made statements to the FBI or to others was Young’s conduct connected to a specific official proceeding, nor was such a specific official proceeding reasonably foreseeable to Young. View "United States v. Young" on Justia Law