A district court can enhance a sentence on a conviction of illegal reentry into the U.S. for a prior North Carolina conviction of a felony drug offense, even though a plea bargain capped defendant’s sentence for the drug offense at ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Judge Diana Gribbon Motz

A Salvadoran native assaulted and threatened by members of two gangs based on his relatives’ alignment with one of the gangs gets another chance to seek asylum, as the 4th Circuit says the Board of Immigration Appeals incorrectly analyzed his ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Immigration Judge Diana Gribbon Motz

Although claimant won social security disability benefits when his case was remanded, the 4th Circuit says claimant is not entitled to attorney’s fees, as the government was substantially justified in arguing for rejection of the opinion of a treating physician ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Administrative Judge Diana Gribbon Motz

In a trustee’s action to reclaim debtor wife’s interest in real estate transferred to her husband’s company seven months before she filed for bankruptcy, a district court erred in finding a resulting trust based on the company’s history of making ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Bankruptcy Judge Diana Gribbon Motz

Although appellant was confined in civil detention from 2007 until 2012, pending a district court’s evaluation of him as a “sexually dangerous person” under the Adam Walsh Act, this period of civil detention did not fulfill his term of supervised ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Judge Diana Gribbon Motz

A defendant convicted of selling heroin can be sentenced as an armed career criminal based on an uncertified record from the National Crime Information Center of defendant’s 1971 second-degree assault conviction; given the applicable burden of proof and the deferential ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Judge Diana Gribbon Motz

In a relator’s suit alleging defendants filed false claims for federal student loan interest subsidies, the 4th Circuit says the district court was too hasty in dismissing the False Claims Act suits against two out of three state-created corporations that ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Contract Judge Diana Gribbon Motz

A defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived his claim that the district court erred in relying on statements from an informant drug buyer to calculate how much cocaine defendant sold in the charged conspiracy that operated from 2002 to 2011, and ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Judge Diana Gribbon Motz

An emergency room physician convicted of filing false income tax returns by using the “Anderson’s Ark and Associates” plan to avoid current tax liability and “recapture” prior tax payments, is not entitled to post-conviction relief on the ground that his ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Judge Diana Gribbon Motz

An employee who broke both legs while exiting a commuter train and who was treated with multiple surgeries, bed rest, pain medication and physical therapy may sue on a claim that his temporary impairment qualifies as a disability under the ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Employment Discrimination Judge Diana Gribbon Motz