Fourth Circuit

The Fourth Circuit vacated a defendant’s convictions for committing a crime of violence while failing to register as a sex offender. The Government dismissed other charges against the defendant and allowed him to plead guilty to one charge conditionally so he could appeal whether his underlying kidnapping offense was a “crime of violence,” and after an intervening opinion held that kidnapping isn’t, the Court held that the district court erred in allowing the Government to reinstate the original charges against the defendant since the Government was still bound by its prior plea agreement.

The Fourth Circuit vacated a defendant’s conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The Court held that the defendant met his burden of showing a Rehaif error where there was evidence that he did not know he was a felon given that he was sentenced to 6 months probation for possession of cocaine under South Carolina and the record showed he genuinely did not know he was a felon.

The Fourth Circuit reversed the denial of a defendant’s motion under 28 USC 2255 where the defendant challenged his conviction and sentence under 924(c). The Court concluded that the underlying offense for the 924(c) charge, damaging government property under 18 USC 1361, was not a “crime of violence.”

The Fourth Circuit reversed a district court’s denial of a defendant’s petition for writ of coram nobis where the defendant’s prior convictions under state law would no longer qualify him for an enhanced sentence. The Court held that the district court had standing based on the possibility of an invalid sentence being used to enhance a sentence again and excused the defendant’s long delay in filing his petition.

The Fourth Circuit affirmed a defendant’s conviction for conspiring to transmit classified national defense information. As a matter of first impression, the Court held that the district court’s invocation of the silent witness rule, which prevented certain admitted evidence, including both classified and publicly available information, from being presented in open court, did not violate the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial under these circumstances.

The Fourth Circuit affirmed a defendant’s wire fraud conviction where the defendant had orchestrated a fraudulent multimillion dollar investment scheme from Israel. The Court held that the wire fraud statute does not apply extraterritorially but that the defendant was properly charged because she used American wires to further her scheme. While affirming her conviction, the Court vacated the restitution order since it went beyond domestic victims of the defendant’s wire fraud.

The Fourth Circuit affirmed a defendant’s conviction for several fraud offenses but reversed his conviction for federal program fraud under 18 USC 666. At issue was whether Section 666 “criminalizes multiple conversions of less than $5,000, if the government must point to conversions that took place over more than one year to reach the $5,000 statutory minimum.” The Court held that Section 666 “requires each transaction used to reach the aggregate $5,000 requirement to occur within the same one-year period.”

The Fourth Circuit vacated a defendant’s sentence after finding that the sentencing court improperly applied the enhancement for distributing child sexual exploitation materials in exchange for valuable consideration. In doing so, the Court overruled its prior holding based on the pre-2016 Guidelines Manual and held that the enhancement only applies if there is a “two-sided exchange.”

The Fourth Circuit vacated a defendant’s sentence for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon after the district court improperly enhanced the defendant’s sentence under the ACCA. The district court did so based on finding that Hope’s prior South Carolina convictions for felony marijuana offenses were for a “controlled substance offense.” The Fourth Circuit reversed, holding that the South Carolina marijuana offenses did not meet the federal definition of “controlled substance offenses” because South Carolina’s definition of marijuana included hemp at the time, and hemp is not a “controlled substance offense” under federal law. Judge Thacker dissented based on his view that the error did not amount to “plain error.”

Sitting en banc, the Fourth Circuit held that defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel at sentencing when her attorney failed to lodge meritorious objections to the PSR and in fact waived any objections at sentencing over the defendant’s concerns. The decision was notable since the Court held there was ineffective assistance and prejudice on direct appeal, without an intervening evidentiary hearing, based on the face of the record.