Court Opinion

ID: 9929149
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-01 21:00:43.082491+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:17:38.782562
License: Public Domain

USCA4 Appeal: 20-4482      Doc: 77           Filed: 01/31/2024   Pg: 1 of 4

                                              UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                                No. 20-4482

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                     Plaintiff – Appellee,

        v.

        ROBERT BARNES, a/k/a Robert D. Barnes,

                     Defendant – Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at Big
        Stone Gap. James P. Jones, Senior District Judge. (2:19-cr-00012-JPJ-PMS-1)

        Argued: October 27, 2023                                       Decided: January 31, 2024

        Before AGEE, HARRIS, and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges.

        Affirmed by unpublished opinion. Judge Heytens wrote the opinion, which Judge Agee
        and Judge Harris joined.

        ARGUED: Dana Roger Cormier, DANA R. CORMIER, PLC, Staunton, Virginia, for
        Appellant. Jennifer R. Bockhorst, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY,
        Abingdon, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Christopher R. Kavanaugh, United States
        Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Roanoke, Virginia, for
        Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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        TOBY HEYTENS, Circuit Judge:

               Robert Barnes was convicted of possessing three controlled substances in a federal

        prison and of possessing controlled substances with intent to distribute them. Barnes

        challenges the admission of certain evidence, the denial of his motion for a judgment of

        acquittal, and the calculation of his sentence. Seeing no reversible error, we affirm.

               In 2018, Barnes was found unresponsive in the law library of the federal prison

        where he was incarcerated. After being taken to a hospital, Barnes told a doctor he had

        swallowed heroin and methamphetamine. A urine test found traces of opiates and

        amphetamines, and an enema yielded balloons an officer identified as containing heroin

        and methamphetamine. A jury convicted Barnes on four charges. Counts 1 through 3 were

        for possessing methamphetamines, amphetamines, and heroin in a federal prison. Count 4

        was for possessing controlled substances with intent to distribute them.

               Barnes first challenges the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress

        statements he made at the hospital. Reviewing the district court’s factual findings for clear

        error and its legal determinations de novo, see United States v. Jamison, 509 F.3d 623, 628

        (4th Cir. 2007), we see no reversible error. Barnes argues he was subject to custodial

        interrogation for Miranda purposes because a correctional officer “ordered” him to tell a

        doctor what he had swallowed. Barnes Br. 25–26. Whether the officer did so is disputed,

        and the district court did not clearly err in finding Barnes was not ordered to respond. The

        fact that Barnes was physically restrained when he made the statements does not change

        our conclusion. On this record, Barnes fails to establish that those restraints went beyond

        the “background limitations” imposed on all incarcerated people in Barnes’ situation.

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        Jamison, 509 F.3d at 629.

               Barnes next challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his convictions,

        asserting that testimony from a government witness that the substances in the recovered

        balloons appeared to be heroin and methamphetamine was not enough, and that laboratory

        tests should have been required. We must uphold the jury’s verdict if—“viewing the

        evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution”—“any rational trier of fact could

        have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” United States

        v. Millender, 970 F.3d 523, 528 (4th Cir. 2020). Because Barnes admitted he had

        swallowed methamphetamine and heroin, and because his urine tested positive for

        amphetamine, a reasonable jury could have found Barnes possessed those substances

        without laboratory tests confirming that conclusion. 1 And based on the amounts

        recovered—enough to create more than 300 units of a commonly distributed size—a

        rational factfinder could have found Barnes possessed the controlled substances with intent

        to distribute them.

               Finally, Barnes argues the district court improperly calculated his guidelines range

        when it designated him a career offender. As Barnes’ counsel conceded at oral argument,

               1
                 Methamphetamine breaks down to amphetamine in the body, and the government
        conceded at oral argument that the test results were equally consistent with Barnes’ having
        swallowed only methamphetamine or both methamphetamine and amphetamine. Oral Arg.
        at 19:00–19:25. Given the substantial proof Barnes ingested methamphetamine, it is
        unclear whether a rational trier of fact could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that
        Barnes also possessed amphetamine. Because Barnes does not challenge his conviction on
        Count 2 on this basis, however, we do not further consider that possibility.
        See, e.g., Grayson O Co. v. Agadir Int’l LLC, 856 F.3d 307, 316 (4th Cir. 2017) (“A party
        waives an argument by failing to present it in its opening brief [.]”).
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        Maryland’s highest court’s decision in Dickson v. United States, 274 A.3d 366 (Md. 2022),

        “settles that issue.” Oral Arg. at 00:16–00:57. The career offender enhancement applies if

        Barnes’ previous convictions for Maryland robbery were “crime[s] of violence” within the

        meaning of Guidelines § 4B1.1(a). Dickson held that Maryland robbery applies only to the

        taking of property through “the use or the threatened use of force against [a] person,”

        274 A.3d at 370—the very thing Section 4B1.1(a) requires. For that reason, Maryland

        robbery is categorically a crime of violence, and the career offender enhancement was

        properly applied. 2

               The judgment of the district court is

                                                                                     AFFIRMED.

               Barnes also moved to file a pro se supplemental brief. We grant that motion, and
               2

        conclude none of Barnes’ arguments warrant upsetting the district court’s judgment.
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