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

A federal grand jury indicted Maria Rosalba Alvarado McTague and Felix Chujoy on charges of visa fraud and various immigration violations stemming from their operation of a Peruvian restaurant in Virginia. In this interlocutory appeal, the government challenges the district court's order excluding grand jury testimony from use at trial without having found prosecutorial misconduct or bad faith in the underlying grand jury proceeding. The court found that the district court abused its discretion where it failed to provide a sufficient explanation for its decision, its stated reasons do not comport with precedent or the facts of record, and its conclusion regarding “fundamental fairness” provides no legal standard by which to measure the appropriateness of the evidentiary exclusion. Nevertheless, the court rejected the government’s argument that the district court may never exclude grand jury evidence except as a sanction for prosecutorial misconduct. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. McTague" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of China, seeks review of the BIA's decision denying his requests for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT). The court concluded that the accounts in the State Department reports, which document only isolated instances of harassment and disparate treatment of unregistered Catholic churches in different locations, substantially support the Board’s finding of a lack of widespread persecution. Therefore, the court affirmed the Board's conclusion that petitioner failed to establish a well-founded fear of persecution based on his Catholic religion. Because petitioner failed to meet his burden of proof for asylum, the court necessarily held that petitioner has not shown that he is entitled to withholding of removal. Finally, because plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as to his CAT claim, the court lacked jurisdiction to review it. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Tang v. Lynch" on Justia Law

Petitioner was indicted for murder and other crimes committed while he was a minor over twenty years ago. Petitioner pled guilty in exchange for a life sentence with the opportunity for parole. Petitioner now challenges the validity of his guilty plea and appeals the district court’s denial of relief on his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition. The court granted a certificate of appealability on the limited issue of whether Roper v. Simmons, which invalidated the death penalty for juvenile offenders, may be applied retroactively to invalidate petitioner's guilty plea. The court held that Roper does not provide an avenue for relief and concluded that the district court correctly found that Roper did not apply to situations where a defendant pled guilty to a non-capital sentence to avoid the possibility of a capital sentence. Furthermore, in light of Brady v. United States, the court found no infirmity in the plea that petitioner entered. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of his federal habeas petition. View "Dingle v. Stevenson" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of conspiracy, making a false statement, theft, and embezzlement, all in connection with her unlawful receipt of government benefits. Defendant argues that, in the affidavit supporting the search warrant for the house, the affiant recklessly omitted material, exculpatory facts. The critical information that defendant maintains the special agent recklessly omitted from his affidavit were facts demonstrating that she and her husband “occupied different parts of the house.” The court affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress, concluding that the inclusion of the omitted information would not have defeated probable cause for the search and thus that information was not material. View "United States v. Wharton" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, four Iraqi nationals, filed suit against CACI, alleging that they were abused while detained in the custody of the United States Army at Abu Ghraib prison. CACI provided contract interrogation services for the military at the time of the alleged mistreatment. In their third amended complaint, plaintiffs alleged pursuant to the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. 1350, that CACI employees committed acts involving torture and war crimes, and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Plaintiffs also asserted various tort claims under the common law. On remand, after reopening discovery, the district court dismissed plaintiffs’ complaint on the ground that it presented a non-justiciable political question. The court held that conduct by CACI employees that was unlawful when committed is justiciable, irrespective whether that conduct occurred under the actual control of the military; acts committed by CACI employees are shielded from judicial review under the political question doctrine if they were not unlawful when committed and occurred under the actual control of the military or involved sensitive military judgments; and thus the court vacated and remanded for the district court to re-examine its subject matter jurisdiction under the political question doctrine. View "Al Shimari v. CACI Premier Technology, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit for damages in connection with a $66,500 loan secured by a deed of trust on her house. Plaintiff alleged that, in the administration of and collection efforts on the loan, defendants violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), 15 U.S.C. 1692 et seq.; the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), 15 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.; and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), 12 U.S.C. 2601 et seq. The district court dismissed plaintiff's FDCPA and TILA claims and, following discovery, granted Wells Fargo’s motion for summary judgment on her RESPA claim. The court concluded that plaintiff adequately alleged that the White Firm and the Substitute Trustees were “debt collectors,” as that term is used in the FDCPA. Therefore, the court reversed the order of dismissal of her FDCPA claims against them and remanded for further proceedings, without suggesting whether or not those defendants violated the FDCPA. The court affirmed as to the TILA claims. View "McCray v. Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a wrongful birth action against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 2671 et seq., after her federally-supported prenatal care provider failed to timely inform her that her child would be born with severe congenital abnormalities. The district court found in favor of plaintiff and awarded her $12 million in economic and noneconomic damages. When plaintiff was eighteen months pregnant, the provider detected potential fetal abnormalities during a routine ultrasound but, due to errors on its part, the provider did not inform plaintiff of the abnormalities until three months later. Because at that point plaintiff was well into her third trimester, the laws of West Virginia and nearby states barred her from terminating her pregnancy. The court concluded that the district court properly awarded plaintiff damages attributable to her child’s past medical expenses; the district court correctly measured plaintiff's damages using the amount medical providers billed for her child’s care, rather than the amount the West Virginia Medicaid program paid those providers; but the district court erred in failing to hold a post-verdict, prejudgment collateral source hearing. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Simms v. United States" on Justia Law

The district court determined that the Board's practice of opening its public meetings with an invocation delivered by a member of the Board violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In Town of Greece v. Galloway, the Supreme Court held that the legislative prayer in that case, although clearly sectarian, was constitutionally valid and did not transgress the Establishment Clause. Town of Greece guides the court's review of this case, which requires a case-specific evaluation of the facts and circumstances. The court concluded that the district court erred in determining that the fact that a legislator delivers a legislative prayer is a significant constitutional distinction; the Board’s legislative prayer practice amounts to nothing more than an individual commissioner leading a prayer of his or her own choosing; given the respectful tone of nearly all the invocations delivered here, which largely mirror those identified in Town of Greece, the Board’s practice crossed no constitutional line; a party challenging a legislative prayer practice cannot rely on the mere fact that the selecting authority has confined the invocation speakers to a narrow group; the prayers in this case, like those in Town of Greece, were largely generic petitions to bless the commissioners before turning to public business; and the district court erred in concluding the Board’s prayer practice was coercive. Because none of the constitutional contentions raised by plaintiffs have validity under the facts of this case, the court reversed and remanded with directions to dismiss the complaint. View "Lund v. Rowan County, NC" on Justia Law

After the Court of Appeals of Maryland suspended Michael Tankersley’s law license when he refused to provide his social security number to the Client Protection Fund of the Bar of Maryland, Tankersley filed suit against the trustees of the Fund, and the judges and the clerk of the Court of Appeals. Tankersley filed suit against these defendants in their official capacities, seeking injunctive relief based on his claim that his suspension violated the federal Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. 552a. The district court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss. Both the Tax Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. 405(c)(2)(C)(i), and the Welfare Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. 666(a)(13)(A), allow states to collect individuals’ social security numbers in specific situations. The court held that the district court erred in relying on section 666 of the Welfare Reform Act to dismiss Tankersley’s complaint. In this case, the court agreed with Tankersley that “applicant” cannot properly be read to include a Maryland attorney who must pay an annual fee to maintain his license. However, the court concluded that section 405 of the Tax Reform Act applies to Tankersley, and the state of Maryland may lawfully compel him to provide his social security number to the Fund or consequently have his law license suspended. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "Tankersley v. Almand" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to possession of a firearm by a felon and was sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e), to a mandatory minimum sentence of 180 months in prison. The court affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress but found that, because of an intervening change in law following sentencing, the district court erroneously sentenced defendant under the ACCA. In this case, Johnson v. United States was decided during the pendency of the appeal and the Supreme Court held in that case that the residual clause is unconstitutionally vague and therefore violates due process. Therefore, defendant's prior burglary convictions do not qualify as the ACCA enumerated offense of "burglary" under the categorical approach. Accordingly, the court affirmed defendant's conviction, vacated the sentence, and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. White" on Justia Law