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

In this case, professional concert photographer Larry Philpot brought a copyright-infringement claim against news website Independent Journal Review (IJR) after IJR used his photograph of musician Ted Nugent in an online article. IJR sought summary judgment, arguing that its use of the photo constituted fair use under the Copyright Act and alternatively arguing that Philpot's copyright registration was invalid. Philpot also sought summary judgment, contending that his registration was valid and that IJR's use was not fair use. The district court granted summary judgment to IJR on fair use grounds and denied Philpot's motion.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded the decision. The court held that IJR's use of the photograph did not constitute fair use because it was non-transformative and commercial, and it adversely affected the potential market for the photograph. It also found that Philpot's copyright registration was valid because the photograph was not published before Philpot registered it as an unpublished work. The court concluded that IJR was not entitled to summary judgment on its fair use defense and that Philpot was entitled to summary judgment on the validity of the copyright registration. View "Philpot v. Independent Journal Review" on Justia Law

In the case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the defendant, Adonis Perry, was arrested in 2017 for possessing a firearm as a felon and for possessing marijuana after he was found with both during a traffic stop. While awaiting trial, Perry repeatedly tried to convince his girlfriend, a key witness for the government, to refuse to cooperate, leading to four witness-tampering and obstruction-of-justice charges. Perry was found guilty on all counts and was sentenced to 210 months and three years of supervised release. Perry appealed his conviction and sentence on several grounds, including that his Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment rights were violated, and that his sentence was substantively unreasonable.The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence. They found that Perry was not unconstitutionally seized during the traffic stop, his girlfriend had authority to consent to the search of his phone, the charges against him should not have been dismissed due to the failure to preserve dashcam footage, the evidence supporting his convictions was sufficient, his convictions did not violate the prohibition against double jeopardy, his counsel was not constitutionally ineffective, and his sentence was not substantively unreasonable. View "US v. Perry" on Justia Law

In this case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reviewed a petition by Sintia Dines Nivar Santana, a native and citizen of the Dominican Republic, who sought to review a final order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) that affirmed a decision by an immigration judge (IJ) declaring her ineligible for adjustment of status. Nivar was deemed inadmissible for falsely claiming to be a citizen of the United States. Her appeal presented two contentions of error. First, she argued that the IJ and BIA erroneously ruled that she was required to establish her admissibility “clearly and beyond doubt,” rather than by a preponderance of the evidence. Second, she contended that her evidentiary hearing before the IJ was fundamentally unfair due to the IJ’s erroneous admission of a Form I-9 (the “employment eligibility form”).The court rejected Nivar’s contentions of error and denied her petition for review. On the first point, the court ruled that the BIA and IJ did not err in applying the “clearly and beyond doubt” standard. The court explained that, for a noncitizen to qualify for adjustment of status, she must satisfy a statutory provision, which requires a noncitizen applying for adjustment of status to demonstrate that she is then and there admissible into the United States for permanent residence. The court stated that this requirement means that Nivar was required to prove — “clearly and beyond doubt” — that she did not falsely claim United States citizenship.On the second point, the court found that although the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) failed to timely submit the employment eligibility form, Nivar was not deprived of “the opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner.” The court also determined that the admission of the form did not render the hearing fundamentally unfair. Therefore, the court concluded that Nivar’s evidentiary hearing did not violate due process considerations. View "Nivar Santana v. Garland" on Justia Law

The case involves Joel Smithers, who was a doctor of osteopathy and was convicted on 861 counts associated with his opioid prescription practices. He was sentenced to a total of 480 months in prison. Smithers was charged under 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), which makes it unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally to manufacture, distribute, or dispense a controlled substance without authorization. Authorization is defined by Drug Enforcement Agency regulations as a prescription issued for a legitimate medical purpose by an individual practitioner acting in the usual course of his professional practice. Following his conviction, the Supreme Court in Ruan v. United States clarified the mens rea required to convict someone of unauthorized dispensing or distributing of a controlled substance. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found that, in light of the Ruan decision, Smithers' jury instructions were incorrect, and the errors were not harmless. Therefore, the court vacated the convictions and remanded the case to the district court for a new trial. View "United States v. Joel Smithers" on Justia Law

In this case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reviewed an order from the Board of Immigration Appeals which denied asylum and withholding of removal to three petitioners from El Salvador. The petitioners claimed they were threatened and harmed by local MS-13 gang members because a relative ended her relationship with the gang’s leader, and they feared further harm if returned to El Salvador.The petitioners challenged the Immigration Judge's (IJ) credibility determination, arguing that the IJ’s mixed credibility finding was neither permissible nor explicit as required by law. The court disagreed, finding that the IJ explicitly stated that she made a mixed finding on credibility, which is permissible under the law. The court further clarified that an IJ may make a partial or mixed adverse credibility determination so long as substantial evidence supports it.The petitioners also argued that the Board's decision was unsupported by substantial evidence because the Board concluded that the petitioners were targeted for pecuniary reasons, rather than due to their familial relationship. The court disagreed, finding that substantial evidence supported the Board's conclusion that the harms suffered by the petitioners were motivated by pecuniary gain rather than familial ties. The court therefore denied the petition for review. View "Ayala-Osegueda v. Garland" on Justia Law

In the case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, plaintiffs Scott Sonda and Brian Corwin, both mineral rights owners in West Virginia, challenged Senate Bill 694, which amended the State's oil and gas conservation law to permit the unitization of interests in horizontal well drilling units, even for nonconsenting mineral rights owners. The plaintiffs claimed that this law constituted a taking of their property and deprived them of property without due process, in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The West Virginia Oil and Gas Conservation Commission filed a motion to dismiss, asserting that the plaintiffs lacked standing, that the Commission was immune under the Eleventh Amendment, and that the complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.However, the district court abstained from ruling on the federal constitutional claims, citing the Pullman abstention doctrine, and ordered the proceeding stayed pending the outcome of a state court action that the plaintiffs may file. The Commission appealed the district court's abstention order.The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's order and remanded for further proceedings, noting that the district court had erred by applying the Pullman abstention doctrine without first ensuring it had jurisdiction. The court directed the district court to first address the Commission's argument challenging the plaintiffs' Article III standing. The court did not express an opinion about the merits of the standing issue or any others before the district court. View "Sonda v. West Virginia Oil & Gas Conservation Commission" on Justia Law

In the case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the petitioner, Jose Lince Lopez-Benitez, a native of El Salvador, sought review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision which upheld an Immigration Judge's denial of his asylum request, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Lopez had entered the United States illegally in 2013 and was subjected to extortion by the gang MS-13 in El Salvador, but he had never been physically harmed. He argued that his persecution was due to his membership in two particular social groups: the family of his father, who was legally residing in the U.S., and "Salvadoran males without male protection."The Court denied Lopez's petition, finding that he had failed to demonstrate a central reason for his persecution was his membership in a protected social group, which is a requirement for asylum or withholding of removal. The Court highlighted that while Lopez testified once that his father's presence in the U.S. was the reason why MS-13 targeted him, he provided no evidence to support this claim. Moreover, no other members of his father's family in El Salvador were targeted by MS-13. The Court concluded that the evidence most supported a finding that the only central reason that Lopez was targeted was because MS-13 extorted indiscriminately.Additionally, the Court found that Lopez had forfeited his CAT claim by not adequately raising it in his brief to the Board, meaning he had failed to exhaust administrative remedies for this claim, thus barring the Court from reviewing it. View "Lopez-Benitez v. Garland" on Justia Law

In South Carolina, the defendant Darrius Andrez King pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a felon after firing a handgun in the air outside a crowded nightclub. During the plea colloquy, the district court did not inform King about the significance of supervised release—that if he violated it, he could face additional prison time exceeding the statutory maximum period for the underlying offense. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 does require the district court to inform defendants who intend to plead guilty about the effect of supervised release. However, the court decided not to vacate King’s plea, concluding that the omission did not affect his substantial rights. The court reasoned that there was no indication that King would have tried to withdraw his plea if he had been correctly informed about the potential consequences of violating supervised release, especially given the strength of the case against him. The court therefore affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "US v. King" on Justia Law

In a case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the defendant, Curtis Davis, had been arrested and charged with drug and firearm offenses after law enforcement officers executing a search warrant observed him attempting to place baggies of controlled substances into an air vent. More baggies of controlled substances, firearms, cash, cell phones, and additional controlled substances were found in the residence. The district court denied Davis's motion to suppress the evidence, arguing that the search warrant was not supported by probable cause.On appeal, the Fourth Circuit upheld the district court's decision. The court found that the search warrant was valid at least as to evidence of firearms offenses. The controlled substances found on Davis's person and in his bedroom were lawfully seized either incident to Davis's arrest or because they were in plain view of the officers conducting the search. Furthermore, Davis's cell phone was lawfully seized as an instrumentality of drug trafficking found in plain view. The court emphasized that for a cell phone to be seized in plain view, the "additional evidence or indicators" of criminality have significant work to do to establish probable cause. In this case, Davis's phone was found in the residence along with substantial quantities of controlled substances that were packaged for distribution, cash, firearms, and ammunition, all found on Davis's person or in his bedroom. This evidence provided law enforcement with sufficient probable cause to seize Davis's cell phone. The judgment of the district court was affirmed. View "US v. Curtis Davis" on Justia Law

Kenneth Hart was convicted of drug dealing, sex trafficking, and witness tampering. He appealed his convictions, arguing that the government violated the Speedy Trial Act by failing to indict him for the witness tampering charge within thirty days of his arrest. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed that the government violated the Speedy Trial Act on the witness tampering conviction, but rejected his evidentiary challenges.The court held that the government failed to indict Hart for witness tampering within the Speedy Trial Act’s thirty-day window. So it vacated only Hart’s witness-tampering conviction and remanded the case for resentencing on the four counts added by the superseding indictment. Hart also contended that the district court erred by allowing certain prejudicial evidence at trial, but the court disagreed and affirmed the district court’s rulings on these evidentiary challenges. View "US v. Hart" on Justia Law