R.F. v. Cecil County Public Schools
This case is a civil case where the parents of a child with disabilities challenged an administrative law judge’s determination that Cecil County Public Schools (“CCPS”) had fulfilled its obligation to provide the child with a free appropriate public education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). There were four issues on appeal: (1) whether CCPS failed to educate the “least restrictive environment” (usually, alongside children who are not disabled); (2) whether CCPS failed to sufficiently implement classroom placement in the child’s Individualized Education Program (“IEP”); (3) whether CCPS denied the child’s parents the right to participate in her education; and (4) whether CCPS provided an appropriate IEP for the child. The administrative law judge and the district court both found that any procedural violations CCPS committed did not substantively deny the child from a free appropriate public education. The Fourth Circuit held that CCPS did violate some procedural requirements of the IDEA, but that overall CCPS did not deny the child a free appropriate public education under the IDEA. Thus, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision.
Lance Belville v. Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company (“Ford”) was sued by a group of individuals and corporations (“Plaintiffs”) for an alleged defect in Ford vehicles manufactured between 2002 and 2010. In total there are twenty-seven individual and two corporate Plaintiffs who had purchased or leased Ford vehicles with these alleged defects. The district court excluded the opinions of the Plaintiffs’ experts, dismissed various claims of certain Plaintiffs and ultimately granted summary judgment to Ford on all remaining claims. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court judgment. The district court excluded the opinions of Plaintiff’s three experts based on their lack of relevance and reliability. The Fourth Circuit held that the district court provided a well-reasoned analysis of the experts’ theories and testing based on consideration of the appropriate Daubertfactors for the case. Those appropriate Daubertfactors included general acceptance of a theory within a relevant field, peer review, and the scientific valid of underlying methodologies used. Therefore, the Fourth Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its discretion when they excluded the experts from the proceeding. Ultimately, the Plaintiffs could not prove their theory of defect when their experts were excluded and thus the Plaintiffs could not meet the essential element of causation. Therefore, the district court’s grant of summary judgment on all claims to Ford was appropriate.
United States v. Justin Hawley
In this criminal case, Defendant Justin Hawley (“Hawley”) pleaded guilty to two counts of distributing heroin and to two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Hawley was sentenced to fifty-seven months in prison, in part because Hawley’s prior criminal history included a sentence of thirty days imprisonment for an uncounseled misdemeanor offense. The uncounseled misdemeanor offense that Hawley was imprisoned for thirty days for was for providing false information to a police officer and for failure to wear a seatbelt. Hawley argued “that the district court contravened the Sentencing Guidelines in calculating his criminal history by counting the prior uncounseled misdemeanor that resulted in imprisonment.” The Fourth Circuit affirmed Hawley’s fifty-seven month sentence. The Sentencing Guidelines (“Guidelines”), under U.S.S.G. § 4A1.2(c)(1), require the district court to count certain prior offenses when computing a defendant’s criminal history for sentencing, “only if (A) the sentence was a term or probation of more than one year or a term of imprisonment of at least thirty days, or (B) the prior offense was similar to an instant offense.” Therefore, under the plain language of Guidelines, Hawley’s offense should be counted in calculating his prior criminal history. Based on this information, the Fourth Circuit held that the district court did not err in counting Hawley’s prior voluntarily uncounseled misdemeanor offense for which he was sentenced to 30 days imprisonment in calculating his criminal history and therefore the Fourth Circuit affirmed the imprisonment term for Hawley in this case.
United States v. Michael Smith
In this criminal case, defendants Mark Bazemore, Michael Smith, Jr., and Timothy Hurtt all participated in the illegal activities of a Baltimore street and prison gang named the Black Guerilla Family. All three defendants were convicted because of their involvement in the gang’s drug dealing and violent acts they committed as members of the gang. The district court sentenced Bazemore to life, Hurtt to 324 months and Smith to 210 months. Bazemore and Hurtt were convicted for, among other things, first-degree murder and attempted murder. Smith was convicted of extortion and drug distribution under a racketeering conspiracy. Defendants sought to reverse their convictions for two main reasons. First, Defendants argued that “the district court improperly handled the fears some jurors expressed to the court after learning of this gang’s predilection for violence and retaliation.” Second, Defendants claimed that the district court should have excluded the expert testimony of an FBI agent regarding the decoding of intercepted phone calls. The Fourth Circuit rejected the challenges of the Defendants. The district court had excused three different jurors that were scared because of the nature of the case and the potential for violence against them or their families after the trial if Defendants were convicted. During the trial, the Government called an Agent James to provide expert interpretations of phone calls of gang members that had been recorded as part of an FBI investigation. Agent James was qualified as an expert in drug and gang terminology in Maryland and at trial he explained the meanings of several coded gang terms used in the recorded conversations. The Fourth Circuit found that the district court in questioning each juror individually after learning that Juror No. 5, one of the juror’s ultimately excused, was experiencing great fear from being on the jury. It is the job of the trial judge to determine if affected jurors can remain fair and impartial. In the opinion of the Fourth Circuit, the trial judge acted well within his discretion in denying the request for a mistrial after excusing the three jurors he believed could not be fair and impartial and keeping those jurors that assured him of their continued impartiality. The Fourth Circuit rejected the argument that the district court abused its discretion in admitting portions of Agent James’s expert testimony and that even if any improper opinion testimony from Agent James was heard by the jury it was harmless.
This case is a criminal case in which Jose Benjamin Guzman-Velasquez (“Defendant”) was charged with the crime of illegal reentry when he returned to the United States after being deported. Defendant was removed from the United States in 2007, but sometime after returned and was convicted of three crimes. Subsequently, in 2016, a grand jury indicted Defendant for illegal reentry in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a). Guzman made a motion to dismiss the indicted, but the district court denied the motion. Guzman plead guilty and appealed. The issue was whether United States Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (“USCIS”) denial of Defendant’s Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) application violated his Due Process rights, and whether under the Supreme Court case United States v. Mendoza-Lopez, 481 U.S. 828 (1987), the due process principle extends beyond removal orders to TPS denials. The Fourth Circuit did not reach the question regarding the Mendoza-Lopezcase because they determined Defendant had not asserted a due process violation that resulted in fundamental unfairness. The Fourth Circuit held that USCIS did not error in denying Defendant’s TPS application and therefore affirmed the district court’s judgment.