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

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's 28 U.S.C. 2254 motion for habeas relief, raising Sixth Amendment claims. Petitioner was convicted of beating, shooting, and robbing a prostitute in a hotel room.The court held that the state court's adjudication of petitioner's claims on the merits was neither unreasonable nor inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent. In this case, petitioner alleged that his lawyer should have sought forensic testing of various items in the hotel room to bolster his story. The court held that the state court reasonably determined that counsel's performance was not deficient as to the items found in the hotel room, and the state court reasonably determined that the failure to test petitioner's sock did not cause prejudice. View "Valentino v. Clarke" on Justia Law

Defendants conditionally pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States with the substantive offense being a violation of the Anti-Riot Act. Defendants' charges arose from their violent participation in three white supremacist rallies during 2017.The Fourth Circuit held that, while the category of speech that lies at the core of the Anti-Riot Act's prohibition, called "incitement," has never enjoyed First Amendment protection, the statute sweeps up a substantial amount of speech that remains protected advocacy under the modern incitement test of Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) (per curiam), insofar as it encompasses speech tending to "encourage" or "promote" a riot under 18 U.S.C. 2101(a)(2), as well as speech "urging" others to riot or "involving" mere advocacy of violence under section 2102(b).However, the court held that, in all other respects, the statute comports with the First Amendment. Because the discrete instances of overbreadth are severable from the remainder of the statute, the court held that the appropriate remedy is to invalidate the statute only to the extent that it reaches too far, while leaving the remainder intact. Finally, the court held that defendants' convictions stand because the factual basis of defendants' guilty pleas conclusively establish that their own substantive offense conduct—which involves no First Amendment activity—falls under the Anti-Riot Act's surviving applications. View "United States v. Miselis" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a wrongful death action on behalf of herself and the estate of her late husband, alleging that defendants manufactured, installed, or supplied asbestos-containing products that caused his mesothelioma and resulting death. After the jury found Covil liable and awarded plaintiff $32.7 million in compensatory damages, Covil appealed.The Fourth Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion by instructing the jury as to proximate cause. In this case, the district court's detailed instruction on substantial factor causation gave proper guidance to the jury to determine whether Covil's insulation constituted a substantial factor in the husband's mesothelioma, and it embodies the "general principles of law" set forth by Lohrmann v. Pittsburgh Corning Corp., 782 F.2d 1156, 1162 (4th Cir. 1986). The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to reduce the award where Covil waived its federal law argument; the district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the verdict was not excessive as a matter of law; and without evidence of passion or prejudice, the court cannot replace the jury's considered judgment with its own, or with an amount that Covil would prefer. View "Finch v. Covil Corp." on Justia Law

Petitioner has been in prison for 44 years for a rape and burglary that he consistently maintained that he did not commit, claiming that police deliberately suppressed exculpatory evidence. The district court dismissed his petition for federal habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254, concluding that the MAR (Motion for Appropriate Relief) Court's decision did not involve an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. The MAR Court concluded that the cumulative effect of the withheld Brady evidence would have had no impact on petitioner's trial.The Fourth Circuit held that the MAR Court's analysis subjected petitioner to an enhanced burden, unreasonably applied Supreme Court law, and was objectively unreasonable. In this case, considering both the exculpatory and impeachment effects of the suppressed evidence, together with the shortfalls in the victim's identification and consistent testimony from alibi witnesses, the withheld evidence "could reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict." Therefore, the court vacated the district court's dismissal of the petition. Because the district court failed to address the issue of whether the petition can survive the threshold requirements pursuant to the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the court remanded for the district court to consider the issue in the first instance and to permit further discovery requested by petitioner. View "Long v. Hooks" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and sentenced to 78 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release. After defendant appealed his conviction and sentence, the Supreme Court issued Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019). Defendant then filed a supplemental brief raising further constitutional challenges, arguing that Rehaif invalidated his indictment and conviction.The Fourth Circuit applied plain error review and held that the asserted Rehaif errors violated defendant's substantial rights. The court stated that sustaining defendant's conviction under the present circumstances would deprive defendant of several constitutional protections, prohibit him from ever mounting a defense to the knowledge-of-status element, require inappropriate appellate factfinding, and do serious harm to the judicial process. Therefore, the court exercised its discretion to notice the errors and vacated defendant's conviction, remanding for further proceedings. View "United States v. Medley" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) attorneys' analysis of South Carolina law was erroneous and violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments by prolonging his detention. In this case, the SCDC attorneys concluded that the law required plaintiff to serve at least eighty-five percent of his drug-distribution sentence before he could be released. The South Carolina Administrative Law Court agreed, but the South Carolina Court of Appeals did not.The Fourth Circuit held that qualified immunity shields the government attorneys from plaintiff's claims. Assuming that plaintiff's continued detention falls within the ambit of the Eighth Amendment, the court held that the SCDC lawyers were not deliberately indifferent to his plight. In this case, Defendant Florian acted reasonably in interpreting the law and, even if Florian did not, Defendant Tatarsky did not act with deliberate indifference when he approved Florian's memorandum. Therefore, plaintiff failed to make out a constitutional violation and the court dismissed his action. View "Campbell v. Florian" on Justia Law

In this action arising from a contract dispute between the parties, Navy Federal Credit Union filed suit in federal district court against Advantage Assets, asserting only state law claims and invoking diversity jurisdiction. For establishing diversity jurisdiction, Congress provides that, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1332(c)(1), a corporation "shall be deemed a citizen of every State and foreign state by which it has been incorporated and of the State or foreign state where it has its principal place of business."The Fourth Circuit held that Navy Federal, a federally chartered credit union, is a citizen of its principal place of business, Virginia. The court explained that 28 U.S.C. 1332(c)(1)'s text, structure, and context support Navy Federal's contention that a corporation shall be deemed a citizen of the state or foreign state where it has its principal place of business. In this case, section 1332(c)(1) requires the court to interpret and to give effect to the second clause of the statute even when the first clause does not specify a citizenship; the district court's and defendants' understanding of "and" conflicts with circuit precedent; and this approach to section 1332(c)(2) is supported by the Supreme Court's holding in Bankers Trust Co. v. Texas & Pacific Railway Co., 241 U.S. 295 (1916). View "Navy Federal Credit Union v. LTD Financial Services, LP" on Justia Law

Defendant's convictions under Va. Code 18.2-248 each qualify as a "controlled substance offense" that may trigger the career-offender enhancement.The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's 10 year term of imprisonment imposed after he pleaded guilty to one count of distributing cocaine. The court held that the district court did not erroneously sentence defendant as a career offender under USSG 4B1.1 where defendant's prior Virginia convictions for possession with the intent to distribute heroin fall within the Guidelines' categorical definition of a "controlled substance offense." Therefore, the district court correctly counted those convictions as predicate offenses for the career-offender enhancement. View "United States v. Ward" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit denied the petition for review of the BIA's decision dismissing petitioner's appeal of the IJ's finding that petitioner is statutorily ineligible for cancellation of removal because, during his first seven years of continuous residence after admission to the United States, he committed an offense listed in 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2) that rendered him inadmissible.The Supreme Court held, in Barton v. Barr, 140 S. Ct. 1442 (2020), that conviction of an offense listed in Section 1182(a)(2) renders a lawful permanent resident "inadmissible" for purposes of Section 1229b(d)(1) even if he is not seeking admission. In this case, because petitioner committed such an offense during his initial seven years of residence after admission to the United States, and was later convicted of that offense, the court held that he is ineligible for cancellation of removal. View "Argueta v. Barr" on Justia Law

This criminal case stemmed from Defendant Terry and Brenda Millender's involvement in the Victorious Life Church. The district court granted Brenda's motion for a judgment of acquittal based on insufficient evidence to support her convictions for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The district court also conditionally ordered a new trial. The government appealed.The Fourth Circuit dismissed Terry's cross-appeal after his death and remanded the judgment against Terry to the district court for further proceedings. The court reversed the judgment of acquittal as to Brenda's convictions and held that the district court erred in concluding that no reasonable juror could find that Brenda knew of the fraud perpetrated by Micro-Enterprise and Kingdom Commodities; the district court relied on this ground alone to override the jury's guilty verdict as to two counts of wire-fraud conspiracy and two counts of money-laundering conspiracy; a reasonable jury could find that the Millenders not only spent the money but also tried to conceal its nature; and no more is required to sustain the jury's verdict on the three substantive counts of money laundering. The court also vacated the grant of a new trial where, on the record, the court cannot see whether the district court appreciated the limits on its discretion in making the decision. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Millender" on Justia Law