Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's drug and firearms convictions and his 120 month sentence. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in rejecting defendant's plea agreement with the United States after considering his extensive criminal history, the overly lenient advisory Guidelines range, defendant's potential for violence, and the nature of his offenses.The court also held that the district court did not clearly err in overruling defendant's Batson challenge where the prosecutor gave three reasons for its peremptory strike of Juror No. 22, who was an African American woman: whether she was married, had children, and her age. Finally, the court held that the district court did not err in calculating the advisory Guidelines range and by applying a two level sentencing enhancement for possession of a stolen firearm under USSG 2K2.1(b)(4)(A). View "United States v. Walker" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The court held that the district court did not procedurally err by applying a two-level sentencing enhancement for recklessly creating a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury to another person in the course of fleeing from a law enforcement officer under USSG 3C1.2. In this case, defendant ignored repeated commands from a police officer to stop running, continued to flee on foot while armed with a loaded weapon, and appeared to be holding or reaching toward his right jacket pocket, where a loaded firearm was later discovered. View "United States v. Dennings" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of a petition for habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. 2255. The court held that the district court erred in substituting a previously unidentified conviction to sustain petitioner's career offender designation. Petitioner claimed ineffective assistance of counsel based on counsel's failure to challenge his designation as a career offender. In this case, the district court found that one of the predicate offenses identified by the State did not qualify as a crime of violence and thus could not support a career offender designation, but nevertheless found no prejudice from counsel's error. The district concluded that the career offender designation could be supported by another conviction in petitioner's record, even though the State did not identify this conviction as a basis for the designation at sentencing. View "United States v. Winbush" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of a petition for habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. 2254. The court granted a certificate of appealability on his claim that he has made a showing of actual innocence such that the district court erred in dismissing his petition as untimely. The court held that petitioner failed to meet the exacting standard for the procedural gateway claim of actual innocence. In this case, none of the new evidence identified by petitioner contradicted the evidence of his guilt presented at trial. View "Hayes v. Carver" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's convictions for filing three false tax returns and obstructing a grand jury proceeding. The court held that the district court properly instructed the jury on the nexus requirement. However, the jury's determinations pursuant to that instruction were based on the substantial evidence presented at trial. Therefore, because the jury was properly instructed and found defendant guilty based on ample and substantial evidence, the court upheld his conviction. The court rejected defendant's remaining contentions related to the course of his trial. View "United States v. Sutherland" on Justia Law

After the district court dismissed a 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition for being untimely filed, it granted a certificate of appealability as to whether the one-year limitations period prescribed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) for filing the section 2254 petition was tolled by petitioner's state court motion to reduce sentence under Rule 4-345 of the Maryland Rules.In light of Wall v. Kholi, 562 U.S. 545 (2011), the Fourth Circuit held that the limitations period was tolled during the pendency of the Maryland Rule 4-345 motion. Like a motion to reduce sentence under Kholi's Rhode Island Rule 35, the court explained that a Maryland Rule 4-345 motion to reduce sentence was not part of the direct review process and undoubtedly called for review of the sentence. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "Mitchell v. Green" on Justia Law

Respondents, Mississippi death row inmates, filed suit challenging the state's lethal injection procedures under the Eighth Amendment. Respondents sought discovery by serving a subpoena on the VDOC. The VDOC provided some documents and then moved to quash the subpoena in district court.The Fourth Circuit affirmed the VDOC's motion to quash the subpoena on the merits, holding that the district court reasonably found that respondents did not have a need for further discovery from the VDOC, a nonparty, that outweighed the burdens the discovery would impose. Accordingly, the court need not reach the state sovereign immunity issue. View "Virginia Department of Corrections v. Jordan" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for ten offenses of money laundering conspiracy, substantive money laundering, and related charges of obstruction of justice. Defendant's conviction stemmed from his role as the "consigliere" of an elaborate multi-state marijuana trafficking organization.The court held that the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress tapes of inculpatory recorded conversations with drug dealers; the evidence was sufficient to convict defendant on each of the ten counts; the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting certain evidence from the lawyer-witnesses; the district court's willful blindness instruction did not entitle defendant to any relief from his money laundering convictions; and the district court's supplemental instruction with respect to a jury note was not impermissibly coercive. View "United States v. Farrell" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's determination that defendant violated the conditions of his supervised release and sentence of twenty months in prison. The court held that because supervised release revocation proceedings are not criminal proceedings, the introduction of unwarned admissions made by defendant to his probation officer did not violate his rights under the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Furthermore, because the proceedings were not criminal, the government was not required to present evidence corroborating defendant's admissions. View "United States v. Riley" on Justia Law

Petitioner filed suit challenging the Director's repeated denial of parole to petitioner. The district court granted the Director's motion to dismiss, holding that juvenile-specific Eighth Amendment protections do not apply to petitioner because he was sentenced to life with parole, and that the Parole Board procedures satisfied procedural due process requirements under the Fourteenth Amendment.Reading petitioner's 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition as a 42 U.S.C. 1983 complaint, the Fourth Circuit declined to extend the Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence to juvenile parole proceedings and find that it is cruel and unusual punishment for a parole board to deny juvenile offenders parole without specifically considering age-related mitigating characteristics as a separate factor in the decisionmaking process. In regard to the Fourteenth Amendment claim, the court held that, although there was no constitutional or inherent right to parole proceedings, Virginia law gives rise to an expectation of parole proceedings that has created a liberty interest in parole consideration. The court held that, nevertheless, to satisfy the due process requirements triggered by this liberty interest, a parole board need only provide an offender an opportunity to be heard and a statement of reasons indicating why parole has been denied. In this case, petitioner's parole proceedings satisfied those requirements. View "Bowling v. Director, Virginia Department of Corrections" on Justia Law