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

In this case, Daniel N. Kemp, Sr. was charged with nine counts of sexually abusing his adopted children. Kemp pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated sexual abuse under a plea agreement and the remaining charges were dismissed. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina sentenced Kemp to life imprisonment and a lifetime term of supervised release. Kemp appealed his conviction and sentence. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed Kemp's conviction. The court found that the district court's plea colloquy did not comply with Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure in multiple respects, but Kemp failed to demonstrate a reasonable probability that, but for the error, he would not have entered the plea. As for Kemp's sentence, the Court of Appeals found that the district court improperly failed to orally pronounce multiple discretionary conditions of supervised release that it subsequently imposed in Kemp's written judgment. This constituted error under United States v. Rogers, 961 F.3d 291 (4th Cir. 2020), violating Kemp's right to be present at sentencing. Therefore, the Court of Appeals vacated Kemp's sentence and remanded for the district court to resentence the defendant. View "US v. Kemp" on Justia Law

In this appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, James Dow Vandivere challenged a district court decision denying his motion for release from civil commitment under the Adam Walsh Act. Vandivere, who had been convicted of multiple crimes involving the sexual exploitation of minors and sentenced to almost twenty years in prison, was nearing the end of his sentence when the government moved to civilly commit him. The government argued, and the district court agreed, that Vandivere remained sexually dangerous. Vandivere filed a motion for discharge and, following a hearing, the district court found he remained sexually dangerous and denied his motion. Vandivere appealed, arguing that he was wrongly forced to bear the burden of proof at the hearing and that the district court erred in determining that he remained sexually dangerous.The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision. The appellate court found that under the Adam Walsh Act, the burden of proof at an Adam Walsh Act discharge hearing is on the detainee to show his recovery by a preponderance of the evidence. The court also found this allocation of burden does not violate the detainee’s due process rights. Further, the appellate court found no error in the district court's conclusion that Vandivere remained sexually dangerous, stating that the district court had appropriately considered Vandivere's behavior while in custody, his persistent cognitive distortions about sexual abuse, his refusal to participate in sex offender therapy, and his proposed release plan. View "US v. Vandivere" on Justia Law

In the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the case involved defendant Glenda Taylor-Sanders, a licensed insurance agent, who pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud. Taylor-Sanders had used her position to defraud several trucking companies and an insurance finance company, BankDirect Capital Finance, by misappropriating funds meant for insurance premiums and obtaining loans under the guise of non-existent insurance policies. She used the funds for personal expenditures, leading to the lapse of some of the trucking companies' insurance policies.In her plea agreement, Taylor-Sanders agreed to pay full restitution to all victims harmed by her relevant conduct, and she waived all rights to contest the conviction and sentence in any appeal, unless it was due to ineffective assistance of counsel or prosecutorial misconduct. However, she later attempted to withdraw her guilty plea, arguing that she didn't fully understand the implications of her plea and that she never acted with the requisite intent to defraud. The district court denied her motion to withdraw the plea, concluding that her claim was not credible and that she had not provided a fair and just reason to withdraw her guilty plea.After being sentenced to 66 months' imprisonment and ordered to pay over $700,000 in restitution, Taylor-Sanders appealed her conviction, sentence, and the restitution order. She argued that her guilty plea wasn’t knowing and voluntary, that the district court miscalculated her offense level, and that the district court made several errors when awarding restitution.The Court of Appeals found that Taylor-Sanders's guilty plea and plea waiver were valid and the issues she raised on appeal fell within the scope of her appeal waiver. The court distinguished between claims that a sentence is "illegal" because the district court lacked the authority to issue the sentence (which remain reviewable despite an appeal waiver) and claims that a sentence was "imposed in violation of law" because it has otherwise merely "been touched by a legal error" (in which case the court will enforce the appeal waiver). The court dismissed Taylor-Sanders's appeal in its entirety. View "US v. Taylor-Sanders" on Justia Law

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the decision of the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, sentencing Joshua Aaron Roy to 120 months imprisonment and five years of supervised release for unlawful possession of a firearm and aiding and abetting possession with intent to distribute at least 40 grams of fentanyl. The court rejected Roy's claim that his sentence was procedurally unreasonable, holding that the district court did not rely on clearly erroneous facts or evidence outside the record. The specifics of the case involved Roy driving his stepdaughter and her partner in the latter's vehicle, suspected by law enforcement to be transporting narcotics. Following a traffic stop, the officers seized 447 fentanyl capsules weighing 61.98 grams from the partner. Roy was subsequently arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm after being identified on surveillance footage following a report of shoplifting. The court found that the district court's statements about the lethality of fentanyl and the connection between the two offenses constituted permissible reliance on facts within the record. It concluded that any error in the reference to multiple firearms did not alter the court's understanding that Roy had possessed a single firearm and was therefore harmless. View "US v. Roy" on Justia Law

In this case heard before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the plaintiff, Daniella Easterbrook, appealed the denial of her application for disability benefits by the Social Security Administration. Easterbrook, who has suffered from persistent back pain since 2011, argued that the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) failed to provide a "good reason," supported by substantial evidence, for not giving adequate weight to the opinions of her treating physician, Dr. John Kim.The court agreed with Easterbrook, stating that the ALJ erred in not applying the "treating source rule" to Dr. Kim's opinions and not providing a sufficient justification for giving his opinions less weight. The court noted that Dr. Kim's opinions were well-supported by medically acceptable clinical and laboratory diagnostic techniques and were consistent with the substantial evidence in the record.The court also found that the ALJ's reasons for discounting Dr. Kim's opinions, such as Easterbrook's decision not to undergo certain treatments, were inappropriate and did not constitute "good reasons." The court stated that a patient's refusal to pursue a specific type of medical treatment does not automatically call into question the severity of her pain.As a result, the court reversed the Commissioner's decision and remanded the case for a determination consistent with its opinion. View "Easterbrook v. Kijakazi" on Justia Law

In this case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled on a motion to intervene in an appeal filed by a coalition of civil rights organizations. The original lawsuit was brought by the Association for Education Fairness against the Montgomery County Board of Education and its superintendent, alleging that a new admissions policy for magnet schools in the county was discriminatory against Asian American students. The district court dismissed the case, ruling that the admissions policy was not enacted with discriminatory intent and did not have a disparate impact on Asian American students.After the Association appealed the district court's decision, the civil rights organizations moved to intervene in the appeal. They argued that the Board may not adequately defend the district court's disparate impact holding on appeal. However, the Board assured the court that it intended to defend this holding.The Court of Appeals denied the motion to intervene without prejudice, stating that it trusted the Board's representation that it would defend the disparate impact holding. The court also noted that if the organizations were granted intervention, their rights would be largely the same as those of amici, or friends of the court. They would be able to file a separate brief and attempt to participate in oral argument, both of which they could also do as amici. The court also found that the organizations' argument that they needed to be parties in order to participate in potential future Supreme Court proceedings was speculative and contingent on unknown factors. As a result, the court found no need to grant the motion to intervene. View "Association for Education Fairness v. Montgomery County Board of Education" on Justia Law

In this case between Norfolk Southern Railway Company and Zayo Group, LLC, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment on the pleadings. The dispute arose from a lease agreement between the parties, in which Zayo leased a utility duct from Norfolk Southern. When the time came to renew the lease, the parties could not agree on the renewal rent and referred the dispute to three appraisers, as specified in the lease. The appraisers decided the rent by a two-to-one vote, but Zayo refused to pay the rent, arguing that the decision was not unanimous. Norfolk Southern sued for breach of the lease, and the district court entered judgment for Norfolk Southern, ordering Zayo to pay the rental amount determined by the appraisers. Zayo appealed, contending that the appraisers could determine the rent only by unanimous vote. The Fourth Circuit held that the lease's language was unambiguous and did not impose a unanimity requirement on the appraisers. Therefore, it found that Zayo breached the lease by refusing to pay the full amount determined by the appraisers. The court affirmed the district court's judgment, requiring Zayo to pay the rental amount determined by the appraisers. View "Norfolk Southern Railway Company v. Zayo Group, LLC" on Justia Law

In this case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded a district court's dismissal of claims brought by Charles Willis Short, the husband and estate administrator of Victoria Christine Short, who died by suicide while in custody at the Davie County Detention Center. Mr. Short filed a lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against several employees of the Davie County Sheriff’s Department, alleging violations of the Fourteenth Amendment for deliberate indifference to Ms. Short’s risk of suicide. The district court dismissed all of Mr. Short's claims, applying a subjective standard for determining deliberate indifference.The Fourth Circuit disagreed with the lower court's application of the subjective standard, relying on the Supreme Court's decision in Kingsley v. Hendrickson, which established an objective standard for determining deliberate indifference in cases involving pretrial detainees. The court decided that pretrial detainees can state a Fourteenth Amendment claim for deliberate indifference to an excessive risk of harm on an objective standard, finding that the allegations in the complaint were sufficient to state a claim under any standard. Therefore, the court reversed the district court’s dismissal of the claims and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Short v. Hartman" on Justia Law

In the case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the defendant, Brent Brewbaker, appealed from his conviction of a per se antitrust violation under § 1 of the Sherman Act, as well as five counts of mail and wire fraud. Brewbaker had asked the district court to dismiss the Sherman Act count for failure to state an offense, but the court denied his motion. The court of appeals reversed Brewbaker’s Sherman Act conviction, finding that the indictment failed to state a per se antitrust offense as it purported to do. The court, however, affirmed his fraud convictions and remanded the case for resentencing.The legal basis for the case was Brewbaker's argument that the indictment should have been dismissed because it did not state a per se Sherman Act offense, a claim that the appellate court agreed with. The court explained that the indictment alleged a restraint that was both horizontal and vertical in nature, which does not fit neatly into either category as per existing case law. The court further noted that the Supreme Court had not yet clarified how to analyze an agreement between two parties with both vertical and horizontal aspects. The court concluded that the indictment did not allege a restraint that has been previously held to be per se illegal, nor one that economics showed would invariably lead to anticompetitive effects, and thus failed to state a per se violation of the Sherman Act.The court also rejected Brewbaker's claim that the jury instructions on the Sherman Act count "infected" the jury’s consideration of the fraud counts, noting that the fraud counts were not dependent on finding Brewbaker guilty under the Sherman Act. It further cited the presumption that juries follow instructions, and found no extraordinary situation to overcome this presumption. Therefore, the fraud convictions were affirmed. View "US v. Brent Brewbaker" on Justia Law

Defendant pleaded guilty in 2011 to possessing a firearm in furtherance of a “crime of violence” in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 924(c), with the underlying crime of violence being VICAR assault with a dangerous weapon. Since his conviction, the Supreme Court has narrowed the kinds of crimes that can support a Section 924(c) conviction. At issue is whether VICAR assault with a dangerous weapon is still one of them.   The Fourth Circuit upheld Defendant’s conviction and found that VICAR assault with a dangerous weapon remains a valid crime-of-violence predicate. The court explained that the VICAR statute makes it a crime to commit any of the statute’s enumerated offenses “in violation of the laws of any State or the United States.” The court explained that it has interpreted this language to mean that one element of a VICAR conviction is that the defendant committed the enumerated federal offense, and another is that the defendant’s conduct violated an independent state or federal law. The court wrote that the federal assault with a dangerous weapon easily qualifies as a crime of violence. That this element of VICAR assault with a dangerous weapon qualifies as a crime of violence is sufficient in and of itself to render the offense a crime of violence; we need not progress to the state-law predicates. The court explained that to require courts to “look through” the VICAR offense to the underlying state crimes in every instance would unnecessarily send them on a scramble through innumerable state laws across the circuit. View "US v. Dearnta Thomas" on Justia Law