Source: http://sclawreview.org/week-18/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 22:27:55
Document Index: 729184371

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1981', '§ 1227', '§ 1227', 'art 62', '§ 1425', '§ 4', '§ 1958', '§ 641']

Week 18 (2017) – South Carolina Law Review
Week of May 1, 2017 through May 5, 2017
Grayson O Company v. Agadir International LLC (Motz 5/5/2017): The Fourth Circuit held that the defendant had not infringed upon the plaintiff’s mark, finding that the plaintiff’s mark was weak and differed in appearance from that of the defendant’s mark despite the similarity of the facilities, advertising, and quality of marks. The court noted that the plaintiff presented no meaningful evidence of intent to infringe, nor did the plaintiff present evidence of actual confusion. The court affirmed the district court’s ruling. Full Opinion
Michael Woods v. City of Greensboro (Davis 5/5/2017): The Fourth Circuit held that the plaintiff set forth sufficient factual allegations to establish an imputed racial identity, which confers standing to assert a racial discrimination claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Applying the Twombly/Iqbal pleading standard, the court found that the allegations were more than sufficient to nudge the plaintiff’s claims across the line from conceivable to plausible, and found that the district court misinterpreted and misapplied the controlling pleading standard. As a result, the district court’s order dismissing the claim was reversed and the case was remanded for further proceedings, despite Judge Wilkinson’s dissent. Full Opinion
Jeisson Uribe v. Jefferson Sessions III (Keenan 5/3/2017): The Fourth Circuit held that Maryland’s third degree burglary charge qualifies as a crime involving moral turpitude under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii), finding that a conviction under Maryland’s third degree burglary statute necessarily involves conduct that “shocks the public conscience as inherently base, vile, or depraved.” In so doing, it denied the defendant’s petition for review of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals, which had affirmed an immigration judge’s holding that the defendant was removable under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(A)(ii), based on two convictions for crimes involving moral turpitude. Full Opinion
Gary Woodson v. Allstate Insurance Company (Niemeyer 5/3/2017): The Fourth Circuit reversed the district court’s findings, holding that the Woodsons’ breach of contract claim was barred by the statute of limitations, and that the Woodsons’ state law claim under the North Carolina Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act for the bad faith handling of their insurance policy claim was preempted by federal law. The Fourth Circuit also held that any similar claims the Woodsons postulate under Title 44 Part 62 of the Code of Federal Regulations (if available) are barred by the one-year statute of limitations contained in federal law. Lastly, the district court’s award of attorneys’ fees to the Woodsons, premised on state law, was set aside. Full Opinion
The State of North Carolina v. Alcoa Power Generating, Inc. (Niemeyer 5/3/2017): The Fourth Circuit held that Alcoa had title to a segment of the Yadkin River. The court affirmed the district court’s ruling, that the Yadkin River was not navigable at statehood and thus not property of North Carolina. The court affirmed the district court’s ruling because the district court did not clearly err in its finding. Full Opinion
US v. Karen Kimble (Wynn 5/2/2017): The Fourth Circuit held that the district court did not err in admitting certain evidence obtained following a search of the defendant’s home pursuant to a validly issued warrant under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Accordingly, the Fourth Circuit concluded that the district court correctly admitted the evidence which, together with additional evidence offered at trial, provided sufficient support for the trial court’s guilty verdict on each of the government’s charges against the defendant. Full Opinion
US v. Gregory Garcia (Duncan 5/2/2017): The Fourth Circuit held that the district court did not err by denying the defendant’s post-trial motions for judgment of acquittal and a new trial. It also held that the district court did not err by taking judicial notice of a portion of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website. Accordingly, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the defendant’s convictions on two counts of unlawful procurement of naturalization, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1425(a). Full Opinion
US v. Jerrod Mack (Niemeyer 5/1/2017): The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s sentence of the defendant to 70 months’ imprisonment. The court found that because the Supreme Court recently held that Sentencing Guidelines are not subject to vagueness challenges under the Due Process Clause (Beckles v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 886 (2017)), and that the defendant’s North Carolina conviction for attempting and conspiring to commit first-degree burglary qualifies as a crime of violence under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a) (2014), the sentence was appropriate. Full Opinion
US v. Fathia-Anna Davis (Shedd 5/1/2017): The Fourth Circuit held that the district court did not err by denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss the “murder-for-hire” charge against her under 18 U.S.C. § 1958 as there were no grounds to dismiss the charge on the “manufactured jurisdiction” doctrine since the doctrine does not categorically prohibit government agents who are conducting an undercover operation from using a facility of interstate or foreign commerce to initiate contact with a suspect, but rather prohibits them from doing so for the sole purpose of transforming a state crime into a federal crime. The Fourth Circuit additionally concluded that the district court did not err in establishing and considering 120 months’ imprisonment appropriate for the defendant and that the court did not abuse its discretion by imposing the sentence. The court affirmed the defendant’s conviction and sentence. Full Opinion
US v. Marcel Kiza (Duncan 5/1/2017): The Fourth Circuit held that the district court did not err in denying the defendant’s motion for acquittal under Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure by finding that social security survivors’ benefits under 18 U.S.C. § 641 are a thing of value because the benefits originate from the United States government and are regulated and accounted for by the government. The Fourth Circuit also found that the defendant’s other argument that the district court otherwise erred in denying his Rule 29 motion because the government failed to prove the second and third elements of the offense lacked merit. Lastly, the court held that the district court’s trial management was reasonable and far from an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed. Full Opinion
John Dunbar Kornegay, III