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

Petitioner challenged the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2241 habeas petition. Petitioner appealed the computation of his federal sentence, and, more specifically, the refusal of the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to designate nunc pro tunc a state facility for service of his federal sentence. Although the court found no error in the district court’s analysis of the BOP’s sentencing calculation, the court concluded that the district court overlooked a two-pronged flaw in the BOP’s exercise of its broad discretion in denying petitioner’s requested nunc pro tunc designation. The court held that, in its consideration of the fourth statutory factor under 18 U.S.C. 3621(b), the BOP misapplied 18 U.S.C. 3584(a). That is, in the face of the federal sentencing judge’s silence as to the court’s intention, the BOP invoked a presumption that the unelaborated federal sentence should be deemed to run consecutively to the later imposed state sentence. The court concluded that the presumption relied on was inapplicable in this case. Because the court concluded that the BOP abused its discretion, the court affirmed the judgment in part, vacated in part, and remanded with instructions that the district court remand petitioner's request for a nunc pro tunc designation to the BOP for further consideration. View "Mangum v. Hallembaek" on Justia Law

Defendant conditionally plead guilty to one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug crime, and then appealed the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained from a search of his residence. The court concluded that defendant has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that the investigator omitted information from the search warrant affidavit - material information about the reliability of the confidential informant who was the primary source of the information used to establish probable cause - with at least a reckless disregard for whether these omissions made the application misleading. Because these omissions were material to a finding of probable cause, defendant has established a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights under Franks v. Delaware. Therefore, the district court erred in denying defendant’s suppression motion. The court reversed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress, vacated defendant's conviction and sentence, and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Lull" on Justia Law

Defendant conditionally plead guilty to being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm, and then challenged the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence recovered after a stop-and-frisk. The court rejected defendant's version of the facts as well as his accompanying legal argument that he was seized before he reached for his pocket. The court also concluded that the police had reasonable suspicion based on a tip from a 911 call, defendant was found in the area in which the gunshot was reported in a high-crime area, defendant failed to respond or make eye contact with the officers, and defendant's performance of a security check gave credence to the anonymous tip and gave the officers reason to suspect that defendant was the man of whom they had been warned. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Foster" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of possession of a firearm by a felon and was sentenced as an armed career criminal based on his three prior convictions for felony common law robbery in North Carolina. The court affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress the handgun found in defendant's vehicle during a traffic stop, and the district court's denial of defendant's motion for a new trial. The court concluded, however, that defendant's prior offense of North Carolina common law robbery is not categorically a violent felony. Therefore, the court held that the district court erred in sentencing defendant as an armed career criminal. The court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Gardner" on Justia Law

After defendant was convicted of charges related to the kidnapping of his estranged wife, the district court sentenced him to 295 months in prison and also required him to register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 42 U.S.C. 16911 et seq. The court rejected defendant's claims of ineffective assistance of counsel because such claims are not addressed on direct appeal; the district court did not err in admitting evidence of prior acts where the evidence was relevant to issues other than character or propensity and the probative value outweighed the danger of unfair prejudice; and, the district court did not err in requiring defendant to register as a sex offender under SORNA, because aggravated sexual abuse involves a sexual act or sexual contact with another and defendant thus was convicted of a criminal offense that has an element involving a sexual act or sexual contact with another. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Faulls" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the district court's dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and challenges several aspects of his capital convictions and death sentence. The court rejected petitioner's claim that the Virginia circuit court’s refusal to appoint a prison-risk-assessment expert compels relief under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U.S.C. 2254(d), because petitioner identified no clearly established federal law requiring the appointment of a nonpsychiatric expert. The court also rejected petitioner's ineffective assistance of counsel claims related to counsel's investigation and presentation of mitigating evidence where the court found neither deficient performance or prejudice under Strickland v.Washington. The court concluded that petitioner's underlying claim was insubstantial under Martinez v. Ryan and therefore he has not shown cause to excuse his procedurally defaulted claim that counsel was ineffective for stipulating at the guilt phase of trial that petitioner was a prisoner in lawful custody at the time of the alleged capital murder. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Morva v. Zook" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit alleging claims for violation of his Fourth Amendment rights under 42 U.S.C. 1983 and for malicious prosecution under state law. The district court granted summary judgment for defendants, who are probation officers; denied supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff's malicious prosecution claim; and dismissed the malicious prosecution claim with prejudice. The court concluded that defendants violated plaintiff's Fourth Amendment rights by seeking his arrest for alleged probation violations without reasonable suspicion. However, the court concluded that the standard required by the Fourth Amendment to arrest a probationer was not clearly established at the time defendants sought plaintiff’s arrest for allegedly violating the terms of his probation. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court’s conclusion that defendants are entitled to qualified immunity. View "Jones v. Chandrasuwan" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty pursuant to a plea agreement to one count of aiding and abetting the theft of a firearm. On appeal, defendant contends that the government breached the plea agreement. In the plea agreement, the government agreed to advise the district court at sentencing that the parties had agreed that the 4-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. 2K2.1(b) (increasing a defendant’s offense level for use or possession of a firearm in connection with another felony offense)(6)(B) did not apply. At sentencing, however, the government advised the district court that it had changed its position on whether a North Carolina breaking and entering offense constituted a felony, concluding that it did, regardless of a defendant’s criminal history. Nonetheless, the government asked the district court to honor the plea agreement and not apply the enhancement to defendant. The district court concluded that the government, although acting in good faith, breached its undertaking in the plea agreement by stating that the enhancement did apply. Accordingly, the court vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing before a different district judge pursuant to Santobello v. New York. View "United States v. Warner" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to firearm and drug charges after the district court assured him that he was not waiving his right to appeal the court’s earlier denial of a suppression motion. At issue is whether defendant entered a valid conditional guilty plea. The court concluded that no valid conditional guilty plea was entered because the government-consent requirement was not satisfied. Insofar as defendant did not enter a valid conditional guilty plea, the question of whether the district court erred in denying his suppression motion is not properly before the court. Because the court has neither a valid conditional plea nor a valid unconditional plea, the court vacated the judgment. On remand, defendant can decide whether to plead guilty again or whether to proceed to trial. View "United States v. Fitzgerald" on Justia Law

Defendant and two companions participated in a crime spree that started with a pair of burglaries and ended with a high-speed police chase. At issue is whether the two burglaries served as part of the predicate for defendant’s Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e)(1), sentencing enhancement occurred on different occasions. The court affirmed the district court's ruling that the burglaries did in fact occur on different occasions. In this case, it was proper for the district court to note that defendant harmed 31 different victims during his many offenses; that defendant’s most recent pair of burglaries ended with a dangerous police chase; and that defendant appeared to be the leader in at least this latest chapter of his long history of criminal activity. View "United States v. Linney" on Justia Law