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

The government appealed the district court's order which altered the terms of a bond the Coast Guard had fixed for the release of a detained ship that was under investigation and restricted the types of penalties the government could seek for the ship's potential violations of certain ocean pollution prevention statutes. The ship at issue, the Pappadakis, an ocean-going bulk cargo carrier carrying a shipment of coal to Brazil, was detained by the Coast Guard because the vessel had likely been discharging bilge water overboard. The court reversed and remanded for dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) where the matter was not subject to review in the district court because the Coast Guard's actions were committed to agency discretion by law. Consequently, the district court lacked jurisdiction to consider the petition. View "Angelex Ltd. v. United States" on Justia Law

Defendant, a former CIA agent, was indicted for illegally disclosing classified information about a covert CIA operation regarding an Iranian nuclear weapons operation to the intervenor for publication in a book written by the intervenor. In the majority opinion written by Chief Judge Traxler, the court reversed the district court's order holding that the intervenor had a reporter's privilege that entitled him to refuse to testify at trial concerning the source and scope of the classified national defense information illegally disclosed to him. In a separate majority opinion written by Judge Gregory, the court reversed the district court's order suppressing the testimony of the two government witnesses, and affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court's Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), 18 U.S.C. app. 3, ruling. View "United States v. Sterling" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of disorderly conduct under 36 C.F.R. 2.34, which prohibits conduct that is "obscene," "physically threatening or menacing," or "likely to inflict injury or incite an immediate breach of the peace." Defendant very briefly touched an undercover ranger's fully-clothed crotch area after the ranger approached defendant, as a part of a sting operation specifically targeted at gay men, and initiated a sexually suggestive conversation with defendant, expressly agreeing to have sex with defendant. The court held that the term "obscene" was unconstitutionally vague as applied to defendant; no rational trier of fact could find beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant's brief touch of the ranger's crotch, in this instance, was "physically threatening or menacing" or "likely to inflict injury or incite an immediate breach of the peace;" and, therefore, the court reversed and remanded for a judgment of acquittal. View "United States v. Lanning" on Justia Law

The district court resentenced defendant, who pleaded guilty to possession of five grams or more of crack cocaine and to maintaining a dwelling for the use of cocaine, to an above-Guidelines sentence of 120 months' imprisonment and defendant appealed. The court concluded that the district court correctly determined that the mandate rule did not preclude it from considering the government's renewed U.S.S.G. 4A1.3 upward departure motion; while the district court erred in concluding that the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), 21 U.S.C. 841, did not apply retroactively, that error was harmless as demonstrated by the district court's statements at sentencing; and defendant's sentence was substantively reasonable where the district court did not base the length of his sentence on his rehabilitative needs. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Alston" on Justia Law

This case arose when plaintiff, a longshoreman, slipped and fell on Oldendorff's ship during loading operations. On appeal, Oldendorff challenged the judgment entered on a jury verdict under section 5(b) of the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. 905(b). The court concluded that the district court did not err in denying plaintiff's motions for judgment as a matter of law where a jury could reasonably find Oldendorff liable for simple negligence. The court also concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for a new trial where the district court properly informed the jury that a shipowner may be "liable for injury resulting directly from an unsafe condition on the ship of which it was aware and which it voluntarily agreed and undertook to remedy, but failed to do so." Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Bunn v. Oldendorff Carriers GmbH & Co." on Justia Law

In these two consolidated cases, at issue was whether the Board had a quorum at the time it issued its decisions in 2012. First, the court determined that Enterprise and Huntington did not prevail on their statutory challenges under the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 151 et seq. The court denied the Board's applications for enforcement of its orders, concluding that the President's three January 4, 2012 appointments to the Board were constitutionally infirm because the appointments were not made during "the Recess of the Senate." View "NLRB v. Enterprise Leasing Co." on Justia Law

AHRN appealed the district court's entry of a preliminary injunction order prohibiting AHRN's display of MRIS's photographs on AHRN's referral website. The parties are competitors in the real estate listing business and MRIS contended that AHRN's unauthorized use of its copyrighted material constituted infringement under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq. The court concluded that MRIS was not barred from asserting infringement of its copyrighted photographs, which were registered as component works in its automated database registrations; MRIS was likely to succeed against AHRN in establishing its ownership of copyright interests in the copied photographs; and, therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Metropolitan Regional Info. Sys. v. American Home Realty Network" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence stemming from his plea of guilty to five counts of tax evasion. The court concluded that the district court did not err in holding that defendant was bound by the tax revenue loss figure he stipulated to in the plea agreement. Therefore, the district court did not commit procedural error in its sentencing determination. Further, defendant's below-guidelines sentence was not substantively unreasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Weon" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his convictions stemming from his involvement in conducting the negotiations for the ransom of a ship seized by pirates and for his participation in the torture of the ship's crew as part of the process. The court affirmed defendant's piracy convictions in Counts 1 and 7, based on his intentionally facilitating two piracies on the high seas, even though his facilitating conduct took place in Somalia and its territorial waters; affirmed the district court's ruling denying defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment for lack of personal jurisdiction based on his being brought into the United States involuntarily; universal jurisdiction was irrelevant to the prosecution of Counts 2 through 6 and each of those counts was based on a statute that Congress validly applied to extraterritorial conduct, including defendant's conduct; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting an FBI agent's testimony because they were admitted only as prior inconsistent statements. The court rejected defendant's Crawford v. Washington claim and affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Shibin" on Justia Law

This case arose when nineteen plaintiff families sought to file a single complaint, raising products liability and negligence claims against the Pharmaceutical Companies. On appeal, the Pharmaceutical Companies challenged the district court's decision to remand for lack of subject matter jurisdiction to the Circuit Court of Wayne County, West Virginia. The court concluded that it did not have the authority to review the remand order because the Pharmaceutical Companies have failed to establish that an exception should apply here, and because the plain language of 28 U.S.C. 1447(c) barred the court's review of the case. View "E.D. v. Pfizer, Inc." on Justia Law