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

Defendant appealed his convictions on five counts of narcotics trafficking. The court held that the district court abused its discretion in its evidentiary rulings as viewed in their totality. The court held that safeguards adopted by the district court to avoid the substantial risk of prejudice inhering in the jury's receipt of the decoding expert's testimony was inadequate. Neither the district court's cautionary instructions to the jury nor its sporadic sustaining of some of counsel's objections adequately mitigated the risk of substantial prejudice. Further, the errors were not harmless. Although the court discerned no reversible error in the district court's denial of the motion for judgment of acquittal, the court held that the errors in the decoding expert's testimony so infected the entire trial that the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings.View "United States v. Garcia" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an assistant district attorney (ADA) for the county, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, against defendant, the elected district attorney (DA) during plaintiff's tenure, alleging that he was fired for exercising his free-speech rights in violation of the United States and North Carolina Constitutions. The district court granted summary judgment against defendants. The court reversed, concluding that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to defendant on the First Amendment claim on the basis of qualified immunity. A reasonable DA in defendant's position would have known that he could not fire an ADA running for public office for speaking publicly in his capacity as a candidate on matters of public concern when the speech was critical of a program that substantially reduced the DA's office's caseload but there was no reason to believe the speech would negatively impact the DA's office's efficiency. The court reversed the summary judgment on the state-law claims as well. View "Smith v. Gilchrist, III" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against her former employer for racial discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 42 U.S.C. 1981. Plaintiff's claims were based on two conversations she had with a coworker where the coworker made racially derogatory and highly offensive comments. The court concluded that the district court did not err in excluding plaintiff's answers to interrogatories from consideration as part of the summary judgment record. The court also concluded that, while in the abstract, continued repetition of racial comments of the kind plaintiff's coworker made might have led to a hostile work environment, no allegation in the record suggested that a plan was in motion to create such an environment, let alone that such an environment was even likely to occur. Plaintiff had not presented evidence such that a reasonable juror could find that her workplace was permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of her employment and create an abusive working environment. The statements at issue were singular and isolated. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of defendants' motion for summary judgmentView "Boyer-Liberto v. Fontainebleau Corp." on Justia Law

This case arose from a dispute between CoreTel and Verizon regarding their respective responsibilities under an interconnection agreement (ICA), a private contract that implements duties imposed by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. 151 et seq. Each party contended that the other improperly billed it for various services. The district court granted summary judgment in Verizon's favor on each claim. The court concluded that CoreTel was entitled to summary judgment in its favor on both its and Verizon's claims for declaratory relief relating to Verizon's facilities charges where the ICA entitled CoreTel to order entrance facilities for interconnection at TELRIC. The court remanded for consideration of CoreTel's claim for injunctive relief. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment on CoreTel's facilities claims where the facilities CoreTel provided were not entrance facilities under ICA 1.25 and CoreTel pointed to no provision of the ICA that authorized it to simply levy facilities charges for any piece of equipment that handled Verizon's traffic. The court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in Verizon's favor on CoreTel's reciprocal compensation claims. Finally, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in Verizon's favor on Verizon's switched-access claims.View "CoreTel Virginia, LLC v. Verizon Virginia, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit alleging that he was unlawfully fired in retaliation for engaging in activities protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), 18 U.S.C. 1514A. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants. The court affirmed, concluding that plaintiff had not successfully established the contributing factor element of his prima facie case. In this instance, the standard would be toothless if the court held that a preponderance of the evidence showed that the long-past activities at issue affected plaintiff's termination given the lengthy history of antagonism and the intervening events which caused the Outside Directors to view plaintiff as an insubordinate. View "Feldman v. Law Enforcement Assoc. Corp." on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to three counts arising from his fraudulent activity in connection with a client's initial public offering. Defendant sought habeas relief, contending that, in light of the Supreme Court's intervening decision in Janus Capital Group, Inc. v. First Derivative Traders, the conduct for which he was convicted is no longer criminal. The court found Janus inapplicable outside the context of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act, 15 U.S.C. 78j(b), implied private right of action. Therefore, Janus does not affect defendant's criminal convictions. Because defendant's convictions are proper under current law, the court concluded that his section 2241 petition necessarily failed. Accordingly, the court affirmed the dismissal of his petition.View "Prousalis, Jr. v. Moore" on Justia Law

Movant was convicted of conspiracy to traffic in controlled substances and sentenced to a mandatory term of life imprisonment without parole. He was 17 years old when the conspiracy began and the conspiracy continued until he had turned 18. After the Supreme Court issued its decision in Miller v. Alabama, movant filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. 2255(h) seeking authorization to file a successive section 2255 motion. The court denied the motion, concluding that, even assuming that movant qualified as a juvenile offender, his proposed motion would necessarily rely on a right that became available to him in 2010 with the Supreme Court's decision in Graham v. Florida, which held that sentencing a juvenile who did not commit a homicide to life imprisonment without parole violated the Eighth Amendment, and not on Miller, which extended the Graham rule to prohibit mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles convicted of committing homicide. Because Graham was decided more than one year before movant filed his section 2255(h) motion, the successive section 2255 motion he sought leave to file would be barred by the applicable one year statute of limitations under 28 U.S.C. 2255(f)(3). View "In re: Tadd Vassell" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death, appealed the district court's denial of his petition for writ of habeas corpus against the State. Immediately after the jury returned its sentencing recommendation, petitioner alleged to the state trial judge that one of the jurors discussed the death penalty with her pastor the previous day. The court concluded that the state post-conviction court's failure to apply a presumption of prejudice and failure to investigate petitioner's juror misconduct claim, which was based on an external influence on the jury, was an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law. Therefore, the court reversed and remanded for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the state court's failures had a substantial and injurious effect or influence on the jury's verdict. View "Barnes v. Joyner" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendant, the Assistant Director for Clinical Administration at Central State Hospital, after her son was murdered by another patient at the hospital. The court affirmed the district court's decision to strike plaintiff's expert witness because he was disclosed in an untimely fashion; affirmed the district court's denial of plaintiff's second motion to amend her complaint to add two defendants because such amendment would be futile; and affirmed the district court's conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to support the claims against defendant, who was an assistant director in charge of administrative matters at the time of the son's death.View "Wilkins v. Montgomery" on Justia Law

Respondent, civilly committed as a sexually dangerous person, challenged the denial of the motions to extend and reopen the discovery period, motions to withdraw as counsel, and motions to appoint a second expert. The court concluded that, in proceedings that could result in the lifelong incarceration of respondent who has already served his full sentence, respondent was forced to be represented by an attorney asserting multiple conflicts of interest with whom he had not prepared for trial because of their inability to communicate. The district court abused its discretion in requiring counsel to continue representing respondent and the error was not harmless. Therefore, the court vacated the district court's judgment as to the motions to withdraw and remanded for the district court to consider these motions after engaging in the appropriate inquiry regarding the extent of counsel's conflicts.View "United States v. Blackledge" on Justia Law