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

The Fourth Circuit vacated defendant's sentence for two counts of receipt of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. The court held the district court failed to address defendant's non-frivolous mitigation arguments and to properly explain its rationale for his term of confinement and his special conditions. The court remanded for the district court to provide a sufficient explanation for the significant deprivation of liberty defendant faced as a result of his criminal conduct. Finally, the court made no assessment regarding the fairness or propriety of defendant's term of confinement or special conditions of supervised release. View "United States v. Ross" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's 240 month sentence for willfully shooting and killing the victim while he was unarmed and fleeing arrest. The court held that the district court did not clearly err in making its factual findings and correctly determined, based on those findings, that second-degree murder was the proper cross-reference. In this case, the district court did not reversibly err by inferring defendant's malice from the facts it found credible and by determining that defendant's malice was not negated by sudden quarrel or heat of passion. The court also held that the district court did not plainly err by applying a two-level sentencing enhancement for obstructing justice. View "United States v. Slager" on Justia Law

After defendant pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm, the district court sentenced him to 120 months in prison. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment and held that the district court did not err in declining to run its sentence concurrently with the anticipated state sentence. The district court found that defendant's offense conduct was extremely serious, and explained that it would not order its sentence to run concurrently with the anticipated state sentence in light of this seriousness, remarking that a lengthy term of imprisonment was necessary in this case. View "United States v. Lynn" on Justia Law

The offense of New York first-degree robbery, in violation of New York Penal Law 160.15, qualifies as a crime of violence for purposes of the USSG 4B1.1 career offender enhancement. The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence as a career offender and held that New York statutory robbery, irrespective of the degree of the offense, is a crime of violence, because it necessarily involves the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another. View "United States v. Hammond" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's successive 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion in this criminal proceeding stemming from murders committed four decades ago. The court rejected petitioner's prosecutorial misconduct claim based on the discovered evidence of a former Deputy U.S. Marshal that a threat from a prosecutor stopped another individual from confessing on the witness stand during petitioner's trial. The court also rejected petitioner's freestanding actual innocence claim premised on DNA testing. The court held that petitioner failed to overcome the procedural bar of section 2255(h)(1), because neither claim was based on newly discovered evidence that, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable factfinder would have found petitioner guilty of murdering his wife and daughters.In the alternative, the court held that the prosecutorial misconduct claim failed on the merits where the factual findings were well-supported by the evidence and not clearly erroneous. Furthermore, petitioner failed to meet his extraordinarily high burden of showing actual innocence. View "United States v. MacDonald" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's pretrial order denying his motion to release seized assets. The court held that there was probable cause to find that defendant used fraudulently obtained and laundered funds to make mortgage payments and property tax payments associated with his Virginia property, and that defendant used funds to pay for improvements to both of his properties. Therefore, the court held that there was probable cause to find that the properties were involved in and traceable to defendant's wire fraud and money laundering charges and were thus forfeitable. View "United States v. Miller" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit dismissed defendant's appeal as untimely under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(b). In the alternative, the court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in vacating only defendant's conviction and sentence on the 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) count and not ordering a resentencing on defendant's carjacking conviction.In this case, after the Fourth Circuit issued its decision in United States v. Simmons, 649 F.3d 237 (4th Cir. 2011) (en banc), defendant filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. 2255, challenging his section 922(g)(1) conviction and sentence, as well as his carjacking sentence. The government agreed that defendant was actually innocent of the section 922(g)(1) conviction because he was not a felon at the time. The government thus waived its defenses on the waiver of defendant's plea agreement and the statute of limitations under 28 U.S.C. 2253(f) in order to allow vacatur of defendant's sentence. The district court subsequently granted defendant partial relief, vacating the section 922(g)(1) conviction and sentence but declining to resentence him on the other two counts. View "United States v. Chaney" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for numerous offenses related to his alleged distribution of controlled substances. The court held that the district court reversibly erred in refusing to suppress inculpatory statements defendant made during a custodial interrogation; the district court erred in failing to conduct an in camera review of confidential law enforcement records requested by defendant when he established the confidential records plausibly contained materially favorable information; and therefore the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Abdallah" on Justia Law

Law enforcement officers obtained a warrant to search defendant's home after they found three marijuana stems in a trash pull. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of defendant's motion to suppress evidence found in his home, holding that the trash pull evidence did not adequately support the warrant to search defendant's home for marijuana possession. The court explained that the affidavit did not provide a substantial basis for the magistrate to find probable cause to search the home for evidence of marijuana possession, and the warrant provided search and seizure authority wholly disconnected from marijuana possession. The court declined to apply the Leon good faith standard. View "United States v. Lyles" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the district court's denial of his motion to compel the BOP to comply with the Fourth Circuit's mandate in Mangum v. Hallembaek, 824 F.3d 98 (4th Cir. 2016). Specifically, petitioner challenged the BOP's refusal to designate nunc pro tunc a state facility for service of his federal sentence under 18 U.S.C. 3621(b). On remand, the BOP again denied petitioner's request.The court reversed the district court's denial of petitioner's motion to compel compliance and remanded again. The court held that the BOP failed to comply with the court's mandate when it denied petitioner's request for nunc pro tunc designation a second time. View "Mangum v. Hallembaek" on Justia Law