Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to dismiss the indictment charging him with the crime of illegal reentry. United States v. Mendoza-Lopez, 481 U.S. 828 (1987), held that an administrative removal proceeding marred by due process defects that foreclosed judicial review could not serve as a basis for criminal conviction.Determining that the district court had jurisdiction to consider defendant's argument, the court held that, even assuming that Mendoza-Lopez permitted a constitutional challenge, defendant's claim failed at a more basic level because he failed to assert a due process violation that would render the adjudication of his Temporary Protected Status (TPS) application fundamentally unfair. View "United States v. Guzman-Velasquez" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendants' conviction of crimes related to their participation in illegal activities in a street and prison gang known as the Black Guerrilla Family. The court rejected defendants' contention that the district court improperly handled the fears some jurors expressed after learning of the gang's predilection for violence and retaliation, and held that the trial judge made reasoned judgments in walking the line between detecting bias and creating bias. The court also held that the district court had broad discretion in evaluating the significance of potential juror bias and the trial judge acted well within its discretion in denying a mistrial. The court rejected defendants' claim that the district court should have excluded an FBI agent's expert testimony decoding intercepted calls, and held that there were no Confrontation Clause problems with the agent's testimony. Nevertheless, any error would have been harmless. View "United States v. Smith" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's sentence imposed after he pleaded guilt to two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm and two counts of distributing heroin. Defendant was sentenced to 57 months in prison in part because his criminal history included a prior sentence of thirty days' imprisonment for an uncounseled misdemeanor offense. The court held that the district court properly counted defendant's prior voluntarily uncounseled misdemeanor offense, because defendant voluntarily proceeded without counsel in the prior proceeding and thus his misdemeanor conviction was constitutionally valid. View "United States v. Hawley" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence for distribution of over 50 grams of methamphetamine. The court rejected defendant's evidentiary challenges and held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting an out-of-court statement made by a confidential informant, an officer's photographs, and a recording of a telephone conversation between the informant and defendant. The court also held that defendant's sentence was not procedurally unreasonable, and the district court adequately explained its decision to credit the testimony of defendant's coconspirators about drug quantities despite the acquittal on the conspiracy count. View "United States v. Davis" on Justia Law

Absent some form of congressional authorization, USSG 5K2.23 does not permit a district court to adjust a federal sentence below the statutory minimum to account for a related state sentence that has already been discharged. The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court's decision reducing defendant's mandatory-minimum sentence by seven months for time served in state prison for related conduct. The court held that the district court erred by basing the sentencing departure solely on USSG 5K2.23 without an independent statutory basis. The court remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Moore" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for three counts of major fraud against the United States, three counts of wire fraud, and three counts of presentation of false or fraudulent claims. This case involved parallel False Claims Act (FCA) and criminal proceedings arising from defendant's failure to provide multinational forces in Iraq with contracted-for armored vehicles.The court held that defendant's criminal prosecution was not estopped by the prior FCA action where defendant failed to demonstrate that all five Fiel factors must be resolved in his favor. The court also held that the government was a party to the contract with Armet and that the government both sufficiently alleged such party status in the indictment and provided sufficient evidence at trial to establish this element of the charged crimes. Finally, the court held that the district court's denial of defendant's motion for a new trial was proper. View "United States v. Whyte" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion based on ineffective assistance of counsel. The court held that precedent at the time of defendant's 2013 sentencing did not strongly suggest that his career offender enhancement was improper, and thus counsel's failure to raise that argument did not constitute deficient performance under Strickland v. Washington. View "United States v. Morris" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit alleging that defendant unlawfully accessed messages in plaintiff's web-based email account in violation of the Virginia Computer Crimes Act and the federal Stored Communications Act (SCA). The Fourth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's claims under the Virginia Act, holding that the district court improperly applied the doctrine of collateral estoppel to bar reconsideration of whether plaintiff adequately alleged that his property or person was injured within the meaning of the Virginia Act. The court also held that the district court incorrectly determined that plaintiff failed to plausibly allege injury to person or property within the meaning of the Virginia Act.The court held that previously opened and delivered emails stored in a web-based email client were "electronic storage" for purposes of the SCA, 18 U.S.C. 2510(17)(B). The court distinguished that opened and delivered emails stored by a web-based email service did not fall within the plain language of Subsection (A). Accordingly, the district court erroneously granted defendant's motion for summary judgment by concluding otherwise. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Hately v. Watts" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action against Officers Strickland and Heroux, alleging that the officers violated plaintiff's Fourth Amendment rights by using deadly force while arresting him. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of the officers' motions for summary judgment, holding that the officers started or continued to fire on plaintiff after they were no longer in the trajectory of plaintiff's car and thus violated plaintiff's Fourth Amendment right to freedom from excessive force. The court also held that it was clearly established that using deadly force against plaintiff after the officers were no longer in the car's trajectory would violate plaintiff's right to freedom from excessive force. View "Williams v. Strickland" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit vacated defendant's revocation sentence and remanded for resentencing. In this case, the district court determined that defendant committed the North Carolina offense of assault with a deadly weapon on a government official and four other violations of his release. The court held, however, that defendant's conviction for assault with a deadly weapon on a government official was categorically not a crime of violence and the district court erred by classifying defendant's supervised release violations as a Grade A violation. Therefore, this error anchored defendant's revocation sentence to an improperly calculated Guidelines range. View "United States v. Simmons" on Justia Law