Source: http://wakeforestlawreview.com/tag/criminal/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 10:40:31+00:00

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On Thursday, January 19, 2017, the Fourth Circuit issued a published opinion in the criminal case United States v. Blankenship. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the defendant’s conviction for federal mine safety laws and regulations and held that the District Court committed no reversible error. The defendant raises four arguments on appeal.
The defendant owns and operates Upper Big Branch Coal Mine (“The Mine”). The Mine had received repeated citations for violations of the Mine Safety & Health Act of 1977 (the “Mine Safety Act”) and its accompanying regulations. 30 U.S.C. § 801 et seq. Many of these violations related to improper ventilation and the accumulation of combustible materials. The defendant was made aware of these violations on a daily basis through routine reports. In 2015, a jury convicted the defendant of conspiring to violate federal mine safety laws. On appeal, the defendant raised the following four contentions: i) the District Court erroneously concluded that the indictment sufficiently alleged a violation of Section 820(d); ii) the District Court improperly denied the defendant the opportunity for cross examination; iii) the District Court incorrectly instructed the jury regarding the 30 U.S.C. § 820(d); and (iv) the District Court incorrectly instructed the jury as to the state’s burden of proof.
Under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, an indictment must contain the elements of the offense charged, fairly inform a defendant of the charge, and enable the defendant to plead double jeopardy as a defense in a future prosecution for the same offense. United States v. Perry, 757 F.3d 166, 171 (4th Cir. 2014). An indictment that sets forth the statutory language itself is usually sufficient under this standard, provided that the language sets forth all the elements of the offense without uncertainty or ambiguity. Id. The indictment in question used the language of the 30 U.S.C. § 820(d) , which provides that an operator of a mine may not willfully violate a mandatory mine health or safety standard.
The defendant argued that the indictment was insufficient because it did not cite any specific mine safety laws or regulations that he allegedly conspired to violate. The Fourth Circuit noted that although the indictment itself did not set out the specific citations, the indictment included as an attachment a thirty-page document that detailed the specific laws and regulations violated and how the defendant violated them. Thus, the Fourth Circuit dismissed the defendant’s first contention.
When a new matter is revealed on redirect examination, a defendant is entitled to cross examination concerning the new matter. United States v. Fleschner, 98 F.3d 155, 158 (4th Cir. 1996). A new matter is testimony that raises a subject outside the scope of direct examination or testimony that is materially diffferent from the testimony presented on direct examination. United States v. Jones, 982 F.2d 380, 384 (9th Cir. 1992).
The defendant argued that a witness’s testimony regarding a statement allegedly the defendant allegedly made, as well as made testimony regarding safety violations constituted new matters. However, even if the testimony did constitute new matters, the Fourth Circuit asserted that the District Court could only have committed harmless error. The content in the questioned testimony, according to the fourth Circuit, was sufficiently introduced and examined at various points throughout the trial. Moreover, the defendant cross examined the witness for five full days at trial, which the Fourth Circuit felt was sufficient opportunity. Therefore, the District Court’s holding that the testimony did not constitute a new matter could only have been harmless error.
The defendant argued that the District Court improperly instructed the jury on the meaning of “willfully” in 30 U.S.C. § 820(d). The District Court gave the following four instructions regarding the definition of willfully under the statute: i) knowingly taking actions that cause a mine health or safety standard to be violated, ii) knowingly failing to take an action required to meet mandatory mine health or safety standards and knowingly allowing that omission to continue, iii)knowingly failing to take actions that are necessary to comply with mandatory mine health and safety standards, or iv) or knowingly, purposefully, and voluntarily taking action or failing to take action with reckless disregard for whether that action or failure to act will cause a mandatory safety or health standard violation.
The defendant argued that the fourth definition allowed the jury to impermissibly equate reckless disregard and willfulness. However, the Fourth Circuit noted that both “reckless disregard” and “plain indifference” can generally constitute criminal willfulness. RSM, Inc. v. Herbert, 466 F.3d 316, 320 (4th Cir. 2006). The Fourth Circuit then had to determine whether reckless disregard could constitute criminal willfulness specifically under the statute in question. To answer this question, the Fourth Circuit first examined precedent that held that a defendant violated the Mine Safety Act when intentionally or with reckless disregard disobeyed mandatory safety standards. United States v. Jones, 735 F.2d 785, 789 (4th Cir. 1984). The Fourth Circuit also examined the Mine Safety Act’s legislative intent and history and held that Congress enacted the Mine Safety Act to punish habitual offenders against a backdrop of courts construing criminal willfulness to include reckless disregard when defendants continually violate a federal law despite repeated citations. Thus, the District Court did not incorrectly define “willfulness” under the statute.
The defendant finally argued that the District Court’s use of the two-inference instruction reduced the government’s burden of proof to a preponderance of the evidence. The two-inference instruction tells the jury that if the evidence permits reasonable conclusions of both guilt and innocence, the jury should favor innocence. Although the Fourth Circuit had not yet had the opportunity to evaluate the two-inference instruction, it noted that other circuits generally disapproved of the practice as failing to instruct the jury on how to find if the evidence of guilt is stronger than that of innocence, but not beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Khan, 821 F.2d 90, 92 (2d Cir. 1987). The Fourth Circuit agreed that this inference was problematic and prohibited its future use.
However, the Fourth Circuit did not agree that the use of the two-inference instruction was reversible error. It concluded that throughout the trial, the government’s burden was properly stated as beyond a reasonable doubt. Further, the District Court also repeatedly instructed the jury on the presumption of innocence. Therefore, the use of the two-inference instruction did not constitute reversible error.
The Fourth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s conviction of the defendant for health and safety violations under the Mine Safety Act.
On Monday, January 23, 2017 the Fourth Circuit issued a published opinion following a rehearing en banc in the criminal case United States v. Robinson. The defendant Robinson appealed his conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), which prohibits the possession of a firearm by a felon. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s denial of Robinson’s motion to suppress evidence of weapon possession, holding that the potential legal status of a concealed weapon does not automatically render that weapon harmless, and therefore, any officer that lawfully stops an individual and reasonably believes that individual to be armed is justified in frisking that individual to secure any weapons.
On March 24, 2014, an anonymous caller called the Ranson Police Department (West Virginia) to report seeing a black male, the defendant Robinson, in a “bluish greenish Toyota Camry load a firearm [and] conceal it in his pocket” while parked at a 7-Eleven. After this occurred, according to the tipster, the driver of the vehicle, a white female, pulled the Camry out of the parking lot and headed southbound.
This particular 7-Eleven, as several officers would later testify, was located next to the Apple Tree Garden Apartments. The 7-Eleven and the apartment complex were both part of “the highest crime area in Ranson,” especially with regard to drug trafficking, and calls to either location were treated with a heightened sense of alertness.
Two officers responded to the call, and within minutes, spotted the subject Camry containing the defendant and the white female. Neither occupant in the Camry was wearing a seatbelt. The first officer, Officer Hudson, effected a traffic stop for the seatbelt violations. Because the anonymous caller stated that defendant was armed, Officer Hudson asked Robinson to step out of the car.
The second officer, Captain Roberts, opened Robinson’s door and, as Robinson was getting out, asked if Robinson was armed. The Captain later testified that Robinson gave him an “oh, crap” look in lieu of a verbal response. Captain Roberts then frisked Robinson, discovering and securing a loaded handgun from Robinson’s pants pocket.
Captain Roberts, recognizing Robinson as a known felon, then arrested Robinson for illegal possession of a firearm by a felon.
Robinson filed a motion to suppress the firearm, claiming the frisk was a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. More specifically, Robinson contended that, while the officers may have reasonably suspected that he was armed, West Virginia’s generally permissive laws regarding concealed carry mean an armed individual cannot be assumed to be dangerous absent other factual information. The United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia denied his motion.
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968), governs the doctrine of weapons frisks by law enforcement officers. If an officer reasonably believes that criminal activity is afoot and suspects an individual is armed and dangerous, that officer may stop that individual and pat down that persons clothing to feel for weapons.
Robinson argued that language of Terry – “armed and dangerous” – requires an officer to reasonably suspect an individual be armed and – as a separate consideration – also dangerous.
Robinson correctly noted that West Virginia generally permits its citizens to acquire permits to arm themselves with concealed weapons. Therefore, Robinson contended, the suspicion that an individual is armed in and of itself does not give rise to suspicion that the individual is dangerous. Robinson conceded that Officer Hudson’s stop of the Camry was lawful. Thus, this challenge turns on the “armed and dangerous” language of the Terry opinion.
The language of the Terry and Mimms opinions is fatal to Robinson’s argument. The phrase “armed and dangerous” does not, as Robinson argued, create a two element test wherein an officer must have reasonable suspicion that an individual is armed and also dangerous. Rather, Terry and its progeny state that, where an individual is reasonably suspected of being armed, they are presumed dangerous as a matter of law and fact.
Robinson’s argument also fails to account for the factual circumstances of his stop. First, an anonymous tip reported a man concealing a gun in a high-crime, high-drug activity area. The tip was then corroborated when the responding officers observed Robinson and the female driver in the blue-green Camry heading south away from the 7-Eleven. Further, Robinson’s “oh, crap” look to Captain Roberts was reasonably perceived as an evasive response to a direct question about being armed.
The Fourth Circuit also noted that widespread legal concealed carry does not render the presence of a firearm somehow less dangerous. The court held that concerns for officer safety logically permit an officer to secure a firearm when that officer lawfully stops an unknown individual who is reasonably suspected of being armed.
In sum, when an individual is lawfully stopped by law enforcement and that individual is reasonably suspected of being armed, that individual is therefore suspected of being dangerous as a matter of law. Therefore, Robinson’s Fourth Amendment rights were not violated when he was frisked.
The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Robinson’s motion to suppress the firearm. Robinson was lawfully stopped, and based on the facts of this case, the responding officers reasonably suspected that Robinson was armed and thus dangerous. Therefore, Captain Roberts’ frisk of Robinson was permissible, and the firearm recovered pursuant to that frisk was admissible as evidence against Robinson.
On Wednesday, October 26, 2016, the Fourth Circuit issued a published opinion in the criminal case United States v. Alvarado. The district court had issued an order precluding the government from calling upon two witnesses to testify about anything discussed during a grand jury proceeding for a post-superseding indictment; the order also excluded those witnesses’ grand jury testimony for all purposes at trial, including impeachment. The government appealed, arguing the district court abused its discretion by excluding this evidence. Further, the government argued that, in the absence of a finding of prosecutorial misconduct, evidentiary exclusion cannot be used as a remedy. The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s order, holding that the district court abused its discretion by ordering the exclusion of the evidence for two reasons. First, the district court did not provide any legal justification for determining how the scope of the government’s questions at the grand jury proceeding exceeded permissible grounds. Second, the district court did not explain how delay, cited by the district court as a reason supporting the exclusionary remedy, was appropriately related to the remedy. However, the Fourth Circuit refused to adopt a blanket policy forbidding district courts to enact exclusionary remedies regarding grand jury proceedings in the absence of prosecutorial misconduct.
On December 4, 2014, Maria Rosalba Alvarado McTague (“Alvarado”) and Felix Chujoy (“Felix”) were indicted by a federal grand jury for visa fraud and immigration charges. More specifically, Alvarado and Felix were accused of smuggling undocumented immigrants into the country to work, in horrendous conditions and for below minimum wage, in their Peruvian restaurant in Virginia. Alvarado and Felix were released on bond. Expecting a superseding indictment, the defendants and the government moved jointly for a continuance. The district court set trial for June 22, 2015.
The grand jury returned a superseding indictment on March 12, 2015. Alvarado and Felix were charged with additional counts of labor trafficking, Gladys Chujoy was added as a defendant, and all three Defendants were charged with witness tampering, conspiracy to witness tamper, and obstruction of justice. Because evidence suggested Alvarado and Felix were using third-parties’ phones to contact witnesses, their bonds were revoked by the magistrate.
The government continued investigating these matters by questioning individuals whose phone numbers appeared in the phone records of witnesses. Carolyn Edlind (“Edlind”) and Sheriff Donald Smith (“Smith”) were interviewed during this investigation in May 2015, and both were subsequently subpoenaed to testify at trial.
On June 21, 2015, the government moved to continue the trial because of a personal emergency. Defendants did not object and explicitly waived any speedy trial objection; however, Alvarado did have to retain new counsel. The district court set trial for October 26, 2015.
In August 2015, counsel for an inmate incarcerated alongside Felix contacted the government with an invitation to interview that inmate. The inmate advised that he and others had provided PINs to Felix in order to facilitate Felix making surreptitious phone calls. After obtaining the recorded conversations, the government discovered evidence that Felix, Edlind, and Smith were potentially engaged in a witness-tampering scheme.
On October 6, 2015, the government subpoenaed Edlind and Smith to testify before the grand jury regarding the post-superseding indictment tampering scheme. This information was disclosed to both the district court and Defendants.
On October 20, 2015, Felix, Edlind, and Smith testified before the grand jury about the scheme, and the grand jury returned a new indictment. Felix and Edlind were charged with new counts of witness tampering, conspiracy to witness tamper, and obstruction of justice. Edlind was also charged with an additional count of obstruction (based on her prior grand jury testimony) and perjury.
Alvarado thereafter filed a motion to continue in order to investigate the possibility of prosecutor misconduct. The court granted the motion, set trial for December 1, 2015, and invited all Defendants to join the investigation regarding prosecutorial misconduct.
On November 13, the Defendants filed a joint motion for dismissal of all indictments, alleging the government used the third grand jury proceeding with the primary intent of uncovering evidence for the charges on the March 12 indictment as well as determining the Defendants’ trial strategy. The district court found no prosecutorial misconduct and denied dismissal of the indictments. However, the district court forbade the government from calling Edlind or Smith to testify about anything covered in their testimony before the October 6 grand jury; the court also excluded that testimony for any use at trial, including impeachment.
The district court stated this exclusionary remedy was appropriate for two reasons. First, the district court stated the government’s questions during the October 6 grand jury proceeding delved too far into the original underlying charges. Second, the court stated, in the interests of fundamental fairness, the delay caused by the government’s June 21 continuance and Alvarado’s later continuance supported exclusion.
The government appealed pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731 and 28 U.S.C. § 1291, arguing two points. First, the district court’s exclusionary remedy was an abuse of discretion. Second, an exclusionary remedy could never apply without prosecutorial discretion.
The Fourth Circuit held the district court abused its discretion in excluding the grand jury evidence. Absent compelling evidence that the grand jury process was abused – for example, finding that the dominant purpose of a grand jury proceeding was building evidence against a defendant already charged – district courts are generally guided to refrain from intervening. See United States v. Moss, 756 F.2d 329, 331­–32 (4th Cir. 1985).
Also, grand jury proceedings have a presumption of regularity that is bolstered when those proceedings result in new indictments. Id. The function of those proceedings, gathering evidence for an indictment, requires broad latitude in questioning witnesses. See id. at 332. Investigating additional crimes, for example, does not require the government to ignore previous ones.
Here, the district court did not find any improper purpose behind the October 6 grand jury proceedings. Additionally, the district court did not explain its legal basis for determining that the government’s lines of questioning in the October 6 proceeding ­– given the regularity of grand jury proceedings and the fact that new indictments were, in fact, issued – merited an exclusionary remedy. Rather, the court based its remedy on incidental benefits to the government’s case as a result of the proceeding, as well as the court’s determination that some questions seemed too far removed from the new allegations. Lacking a finding of bad faith or improper purpose, the district court essentially excluded the government’s evidence as punishment for not being clairvoyant. The Fourth Circuit therefore held the district court abused its discretion by issuing an exclusionary remedy.
The Fourth Circuit also held the district court’s exclusion of evidence based on delay was an abuse of discretion. The district court never explained in its order why the continuances it once granted later justified exclusion of evidence. The district court did not find bad faith on behalf of the government; further, the court did not state that the government did anything other than conduct a good-faith investigation into the new witness tampering and obstruction charges.
If a district court is going to exclude evidence on the basis that the evidence was attained due to a bad-faith continuance, grand jury abuse, or other prosecutorial misconduct, then the court must clearly state so in its order. Failing to do so – yet ordering exclusion of evidence – was an abuse of the district court’s discretion.
The Fourth Circuit rejected the government’s argument to categorically limit a district court’s available remedies regarding grand jury proceedings. As argued by the government, if a grand jury proceeding is found to have a proper dominant purpose, the district court will be unable to issue any remedies regarding evidence and testimony obtained during that proceeding. Such is the case in the Eleventh Circuit – a district court may only issue an exclusionary remedy if grand jury proceedings were conducted with the improper dominant purpose of obtaining evidence for existing charges. See United States v. US Infrastructure, Inc., 576 F.3d 1195, 1215 (11th Cir. 2009).
The Fourth Circuit did not want to exclude the availability of a remedy for lines of questioning that skirt the limits of permissibility but do not go beyond them. In certain situations, the court held, remedial actions may still be justified despite a proper dominant purpose for grand jury proceedings.
However, the district court here failed to justify its exclusionary remedy. The district court failed to state any findings of bad faith or prosecutorial misconduct in its order. The government’s lines of questioning did not support a finding of improper purpose. The delays were not connected to reasons for the district court’s exclusionary remedy. For those reasons, and not – as the government proposed – due to a blanket prohibition on available district court remedies, the Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s order.
The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s order excluding evidence and testimony from or relating to the October 6 grand jury proceedings. The court remanded the case back to the district court with instructions to either (a) admit the excluded evidence or (b) issue a new order specifically stating how the exclusion of the evidence is narrowly tailored to the court’s concerns regarding the government’s conduct.

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