Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-23-04393/USCOURTS-ca4-23-04393-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Shawn Crews
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 23-4393

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

SHAWN CREWS,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at 

Wilmington. James C. Dever III, District Judge. (7:22-cr-00105-D-KS-1)

Submitted: September 30, 2024 Decided: December 23, 2024

Before GREGORY, THACKER, and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ON BRIEF: G. Alan Dubois, Federal Public Defender, Andrew DeSimone, Assistant 

Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Raleigh, 

North Carolina, for Appellant. Michael F. Easley, Jr., United States Attorney, David A. 

Bragdon, Assistant United States Attorney, John L. Gibbons, Assistant United States

Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, 

for Appellee. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM: 

Shawn Crews pled guilty, without a plea agreement, to three counts of distribution 

of a quantity of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C). The district court 

sentenced Crews to a total term of 46 months’ imprisonment. On appeal, Crews argues 

that the district court violated his due process rights and abused its discretion at sentencing

by refusing to admit polygraph evidence he proffered in opposition to a sentencing 

enhancement without hearing Crews’s argument or evidence as to the polygraph’s

reliability and instead relying on other, undisclosed evidence to find the polygraph

unreliable. We affirm. 

In general, “[w]e review the reasonableness of a sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) 

using an abuse-of-discretion standard, regardless of whether the sentence is inside, just 

outside, or significantly outside the Guidelines range.” United States v. Nance, 957 F.3d 

204, 212 (4th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). In determining 

procedural reasonableness, this Court considers whether the district court properly 

calculated the defendant’s Guidelines range, gave the parties an opportunity to argue for 

an appropriate sentence, considered the § 3553(a) factors, and sufficiently explained the 

selected sentence. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 49-51 (2007). If a sentence is free 

of “significant procedural error,” we review the sentence for substantive reasonableness. 

Id. at 51.

The Fifth Amendment requires that no person be deprived of liberty without due 

process of law. U.S. Const. amend. V. “Due process may be violated in sentencing by the 

use of inaccurate information” or “by sentencing on information whose accuracy a 

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defendant has not had a fair opportunity to challenge.” United States v. Inglesi, 988 F.2d 

500, 502 (4th Cir. 1993). In the context of sentencing enhancements, these principles mean 

that a defendant must receive notice of the enhancement so that he has “an opportunity to 

contest the validity or applicability of the [grounds] upon which the . . . enhancement is 

based.” United States v. Hodge, 902 F.3d 420, 427 (4th Cir. 2018) (internal quotation 

marks and brackets omitted). 

A district court must disclose any information on which it will rely in fashioning a 

sentence and give the parties a “reasonable opportunity to comment on that information.” 

Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(i)(1)(B). Additionally, the court “must allow the parties’ attorneys to 

comment on the probation officer’s determinations and other matters relating to an 

appropriate sentence.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(i)(1)(C). As part of the sentencing proceedings, 

“[t]he court may permit the parties to introduce evidence on the objections.” Fed. R. Crim. 

P. 32(i)(2). 

As a general principle, “[n]o limitation shall be placed on the information . . . a 

court . . . may receive and consider for the purpose of imposing an appropriate sentence.” 

18 U.S.C. § 3661. However, the proffered evidence must have “sufficient indicia of 

reliability to support its probable accuracy.” United States v. Roy, 88 F.4th 525, 531 (4th 

Cir. 2023) (internal quotation marks omitted). A district court’s “determination that 

evidence is sufficiently reliable is reviewed for an abuse of discretion.” United States v. 

Kokinda, 93 F.4th 635, 649 (4th Cir. 2024), petition for cert. filed, No. 24-5006 (U.S. July 

1, 2024). Additionally, although “[w]e review evidentiary rulings implicating 

constitutional claims de novo,” we review for abuse of discretion arguments that are 

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“couched in terms of . . . due process right[s]” but “are better framed as evidentiary 

arguments,” such as challenges to a district court’s refusal to admit certain evidence that it 

“deems irrelevant or immaterial.” United States v. Rand, 835 F.3d 451, 459 (4th Cir. 2016) 

(internal quotation marks and brackets omitted); see United States v. Malloy, 568 F.3d 166, 

177 (4th Cir. 2009) (same). “A court abuses its discretion when it acts arbitrarily or 

irrationally, fails to consider judicially recognized factors constraining its exercise of 

discretion, relies on erroneous factual or legal premises, or commits an error of law.” Hicks 

v. Ferreyra, 64 F.4th 156, 171 (4th Cir. 2023) (internal quotation marks omitted), cert. 

denied, 144 S. Ct. 555 (2024). 

In accordance with these principles, the presentence report contained the

information on which the district court relied to enhance Crews’s sentence. Crews had 

notice of this information, a chance to develop an argument and evidence in response to 

that information, and an opportunity to be heard on the challenged enhancement at 

sentencing. The court allowed Crews to present evidence on the enhancement and, 

although the court rejected some of Crews’s evidence as unreliable, it still allowed defense 

counsel to describe her conversations with Crews and his claims regarding the applicability 

of the enhancement. The court weighed this evidence against the Government’s and 

ultimately found the Government’s evidence more reliable due to various factors stated on 

the record. Furthermore, the court’s decision to exclude the polygraph evidence was not 

based on a per se policy against such evidence or otherwise based on erroneous factual or 

legal premises, particularly given the long-standing, varied opinions about such evidence 

in this and other courts. See United States v. Prince-Oyibo, 320 F.3d 494, 497, 501 (4th 

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Cir. 2003) (upholding per se ban on polygraph evidence and recognizing that “results of an 

accused’s or a witness’s polygraph test are not admissible to bolster or undermine 

credibility”); Ortega v. United States, 270 F.3d 540, 548 (8th Cir. 2001) (collecting 

decisions upholding lower courts’ refusals to admit polygraph evidence at sentencing); see 

also United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303, 309 (1998) (observing that “there is simply 

no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable”). Therefore, we conclude that the district 

court’s evidentiary ruling on the issue of the polygraph evidence constituted neither an 

abuse of discretion nor a violation of Crews’s due process rights. 

Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court. We dispense with oral 

argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials 

before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED

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