UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff – Appellee, v. JOVON LOVELLE MEDLEY, Defendant – Appellant.
No. 18-4789
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
August 21, 2020
PUBLISHED
Argued: January 29, 2020 Decided: August 21, 2020
Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, KING, and QUATTLEBAUM, Circuit Judges.
Vacated and remanded with instructions by published opinion. Chief Judge Gregory wrote the opinion, in which Judge King joined. Judge Quattlebaum wrote a dissenting opinion.
ARGUED: Cullen Oakes Macbeth, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellant. Burden Hastings Walker, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: James Wyda, Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellant. Robert K. Hur, United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, Christian J. Nauvel, Special Assistant United States Attorney, Thomas M. Sullivan, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellee.
Jovon Medley was tried on three charges: possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of
In his initial brief to this Court, Medley raised various Fifth and Sixth Amendment challenges to his conviction and sentence. Then, after the Supreme Court issued Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019), Medley filed a supplemental brief raising further constitutional challenges, arguing that Rehaif invalidates his indictment and conviction. First, Medley claims the Government‘s failure to allege knowledge of his “relevant status,” Rehaif, 139 S. Ct. at 2194, in the charging instrument violated his Fifth Amendment grand jury right and Sixth Amendment notice right. Second, he argues the district court‘s failure to instruct the jury that it must find the knowledge-of-status element satisfied, and the jury‘s conviction of Medley when the Government failed to put on sufficient trial evidence relating to this element, violated his Sixth Amendment jury trial right and his right to due process.
I.
On December 31, 2016, members of the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department observed Medley standing on a sidewalk with a group of other individuals. As Medley began to distance himself from the group, the officers began to follow him. Medley then increased his speed and ran into a nearby house, passing a resident of the home without speaking to him. The officers stopped as they were trying to enter the premises when they observed a dog coming toward them from inside of the home.
On January 23, 2017, Prince George‘s County Police Department (“PGPD“) detectives received a lead from the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network database that linked the shell casings recovered from the scene of a December 30, 2016 carjacking in Prince George‘s County to the Rock Island Firearm recovered during Medley‘s arrest. The detectives looked up Medley‘s D.C. case, discovered he was being held without bond, and traveled to the D.C. jail to interview Medley on January 31, 2017.
During the interview, the detectives advised Medley of his Miranda rights. Despite having counsel appointed to him at the time for his D.C. case, Medley did not alert the detectives that he had counsel; nor did they ask. Medley told the detectives that the Rock
On May 8, 2017, a federal grand jury in the District of Maryland returned an indictment charging Medley with one count of carjacking resulting in serious bodily injury, under
Prior to trial, Medley moved to suppress various pieces of evidence, including the statements he made to the PGPD detectives. After a hearing, the district court denied Medley‘s motions and Medley proceeded to a jury trial, which began on June 18, 2018. The trial concluded on June 22, 2018, and the district court instructed the jury on what it had to find in order to convict Medley of the charges. Relevant here, the district court instructed the jury that it had to find three elements in order to conclude the government sustained its burden of proving Medley guilty of his
First, that the defendant was convicted, in any court, of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, as charged, and that the defendant‘s civil rights have not been restored following that conviction;
Second, that the defendant knowingly possessed the Rock Island Armory model M1911-A1 .45 caliber semi-automatic firearm, bearing serial
number RIA1578527, or the seven cartridges of .45 caliber ammunition, or both, as charged; and
Third, that the possession charged was in or affecting interstate (or foreign) commerce.
J.A. 2654.
The district court then clarified what the jury may consider when determining whether Medley was guilty of this charge. Regarding the first element, the district court instructed the jury that “[t]he parties have stipulated (that is, agreed) that the defendant was convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year,” and that this conviction may only be considered “for the fact that it exists.” J.A. 2655. The district court directed the jury that it was “not to consider it for any other purpose.” J.A. 2655.
With respect to the second element, the district court instructed the jury that it must “find that the defendant knowingly possessed the firearm.” J.A. 2656. “This means,” the court continued, “that he possessed the firearm purposely and voluntarily, and not by accident or mistake.” J.A. 2656. “However,” the court continued, “the government is not required to prove that the defendant knew that he was breaking the law.” J.A. 2657.
Since the third element, that the firearm was in or affecting interstate commerce, was not disputed, the district court informed the jury of this fact. J.A. 2658.
The jury convicted Medley of the
Medley timely appealed. He argued that the district court violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel by admitting uncounseled statements he made to PGPD detectives after being appointed counsel in another case brought by the same sovereign for the same offense; the district court erred by enhancing his sentence based on a finding that he used the firearm in connection with another felony; and the district court violated his Sixth Amendment right to a jury by sentencing him on the basis of acquitted conduct.
Shortly after the parties briefed this Court on the matters above, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019). The Court held that “in a prosecution under
II.
Given the timing of Rehaif, Medley was unable to raise these claims in the district court. However, current law governs his claim on appeal, which we review for plain error. See Henderson v. United States, 568 U.S. 266, 269 (2013). Under this standard, Medley “must show (1) an error, (2) that is plain, and (3) that affected his substantial rights.” United States v. Dennison, 925 F.3d 185, 190 (4th Cir. 2019). If he does so, we may use our discretion to correct the error if it “seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Molina-Martinez v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1338, 1343 (2016) (quoting United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 736 (1993)).
III.
We first consider whether the errors in this case violated Medley‘s substantial rights.
A. The Indictment
i.
Medley argues that the failure to include the knowledge-of-status element in his indictment affected his substantial rights. Specifically, he claims he was prejudiced by not receiving notice that the Government had to prove he knew his prohibited status at the time of the offense. Medley does not claim an indictment‘s omission of an element is always prejudicial. However, he contends that defendants are prejudiced when the charging instrument fails to fulfill the notice purpose of an indictment. Since the charging instrument here failed to give any indication that the Government would have to show that
The Government disagrees. The Government argues that Medley‘s substantial rights were not violated by the flawed indictment. The Government does not contest that it was required to include the knowledge-of-status element in Medley‘s indictment. Nor does the Government contend that the charging instrument provided Medley with sufficient notice of the accusations against him. Instead, the Government insists that precedent requires us to excuse the mistakes in the indictment when it can be determined from the record that the mistakes did not affect the outcome of the proceeding. The Government cites United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625 (2002), and Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), in support of this position. Because Medley could not show that the outcome would have been different if the knowledge-of-status element was included in the indictment, the Government reasons, the absence of the knowledge-of-status element did not affect Medley‘s substantial rights.
The task here is to determine whether Medley‘s substantial rights were violated by not being made aware of the knowledge-of-status element. On this question, we do not write on a blank slate. As both parties agree, binding precedent provides us with a framework to answer whether Medley‘s substantial rights were violated by not having the knowledge-of-status element included in his indictment. We now turn to that precedent.
“Any discussion of the purpose served by a grand jury indictment in the administration of federal criminal law must begin with the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution.” Russell v. United States, 369 U.S. 749, 760 (1962). The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires that “[n]o person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury.”
Courts have long held that an indictment that omits an essential element of an offense is deficient. See Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 500–18 (Thomas, J., concurring) (discussing cases and treatises since the 1840‘s, which repeatedly emphasize the importance of including every element in an indictment); Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227, 243 n.6 (1999) (holding that “under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the notice and jury trial guarantees of the Sixth Amendment, any fact (other than prior conviction) that increases the maximum penalty for a crime must be charged in an indictment, submitted to a jury, and proven beyond a reasonable doubt“); United States v. Pupo, 841 F.2d 1235, 1239 (4th Cir. 1988) (en banc) (“It is well established that an indictment is defective if it fails to allege elements of scienter that are expressly contained
In Apprendi, the appellant was convicted of second-degree possession of a firearm, punishable by a term of imprisonment between five and 10 years. However, he was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment under the state‘s hate crime law, which permitted an enhanced sentence between 10 and 20 years of imprisonment if the sentencing judge
In United States v. Promise, this Court, sitting en banc, confronted the question of how to apply plain error review when a defendant‘s indictment failed to include an essential element. 255 F.3d 150 (4th Cir. 2001). Following Apprendi, we held “the district court committed plain error in failing to treat the specific amount of cocaine base attributed to [the defendant] as an element of the offense.” Promise, 255 F.3d at 152. We further noted that because the indictment failed to allege, and the jury failed to find, this additional element, the appellant‘s substantial rights were violated. Id. at 160–62. Nevertheless, applying Olano‘s fourth prong, a plurality of the Court declined to notice the error because “witness after witness testified” that the appellant supplied a sufficient quantity of drugs to warrant the sentence. Id. at 163.3 Although this conclusion was heavily criticized by the partial dissent as “antithetical to our system of justice,” id. at 187 (Motz, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part, and dissenting from the judgment), the opinion defended the decision by balancing numerous considerations—including “the strength of the
Note, however, that a majority of the court agreed that the defective indictment affected the defendant‘s substantial rights. Compare Promise, 225 F.3d at 160–62 (“We therefore conclude that [appellant] has demonstrated that this error affected his substantial rights.“), with id. at 186 (Motz, J., joined by Widener, Michael, and King, JJ.) (“This plain error not only clearly affects [the appellant‘s] substantial rights, it also goes to the very heart of the judicial process.“). Indeed, when responding to the partial dissent‘s claim that precedent requires a per se rule for defective indictments, the plurality claimed that precedent “only requires us to conclude that such omissions from the indictment necessarily affect a defendant‘s substantial rights, regardless of whether the defendant had actual notice.” Id. at 164 n.9. “But the fact that the error affects substantial rights (the third prong of the plain error inquiry),” the plurality continued, “does not compel us to notice the error (the final prong).” Id. There was general agreement, however, that a defective indictment affected a defendant‘s substantial rights, satisfying Olano‘s third prong.
To be sure, this Court was equally divided as to whether such errors ought to be corrected. Compare Promise, 255 F.3d at 161–64 (Wilkins, J., joined by Wilkinson, C.J., and Williams and Traxler, JJ.) (declining to notice the plain error even though it affected the Appellant‘s substantial rights), with id. at 190 (Motz, J., joined by Widener, Michael, and King, JJ.) (“Certainly, sentencing a man for a crime for which he has been neither charged nor convicted seriously affects the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of
This Court attempted to resolve that open question in United States v. Cotton, 261 F.3d 397, 404 (4th Cir. 2001), rev‘d, 535 U.S. 625 (2002). We again found plain error because the indictment lacked an allegation of a specific threshold drug quantity. Id. at 403. We also noted that our precedent required holding that a defective indictment violated a defendant‘s substantial rights. Id.; see also id. at 411 (Wilkinson, J., dissenting) (”Promise makes clear that this error affected the defendant‘s substantial rights.“). Yet despite the Government‘s contention that “the evidence adduced at trial overwhelmingly” proves the additional element, we stated that Supreme Court precedent required us to hold that a sentencing court exceeds its jurisdiction when sentencing a defendant on a defective indictment. Id. at 404–07. Accordingly, we vacated the defendant‘s sentence and remanded the case.
Our decision was overturned by the Supreme Court in United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625 (2002). The Court overruled its prior holding that indictment defects are jurisdictional. Id. at 629–31 (overruling Ex parte Bain, 121 U.S. 1 (1887)). In doing so, however, the Court failed to address whether indictment defects satisfied the third prong of the plain-error inquiry. Id. at 632–33 (“[W]e need not resolve whether respondents satisfy this element of the plain-error inquiry, because even assuming respondents’ substantial rights were affected, the error did not seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or
To our knowledge, the Supreme Court has never denied that a constitutionally deficient indictment is prejudicial under Olano‘s third prong. Indeed, the Court‘s treatment of indictments suggests the opposite. See Silber v. United States, 370 U.S. 717, 717 (1962) (reversing judgment for plain error as a result of a defective indictment); see also Rosales-Mireles v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1897, 1907 (2018) (citing Silber approvingly); Russell, 369 U.S. at 770 (“To allow the prosecutor, or the court, to make a subsequent guess as to what was in the minds of the grand jury at the time they returned the indictment would deprive the defendant of a basic protection which the guaranty of the intervention of a grand jury was designed to secure.“); Promise, 255 F.3d at 186 (Motz, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part, and dissenting from the judgment) (noting that of all the cases the Olano Court listed as setting forth the correct plain error standard, the only case where the error was noticed and corrected involved a defective indictment).
After Cotton, this Court, for its part, has suggested that a defendant is prejudiced by an incomplete indictment if “the protections provided by an indictment were . . .
iii.
Medley argues that, even under its most liberal construction, his charging instrument fails to put him on notice of the knowledge-of-status element and does not describe the element at all. We agree. The Government has not provided any convincing reason to hold that Medley‘s indictment fulfilled the notice function of an indictment. Nor could it. As the Supreme Court has put it, “the indictment must contain an allegation of every fact which is legally essential to the punishment to be inflicted.” Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 490 n.15 (quoting United States v. Reese, 92 U.S. 214, 232–33 (1875) (Clifford, J., concurring)). Here, it did not. The record adequately shows that neither the indictment‘s charging language, nor its factual allegations, provided notice that Medley would have to defend against the allegation that he knew his prohibited status.
B. The Jury Trial
i.
Medley‘s claim for relief does not end there. In addition to being prejudiced by his defective indictment, Medley argues that his substantial rights were violated by the district court‘s failure to instruct the jury that it had to find Medley knew his prohibited status under the reasonable-doubt standard, and the Government‘s failure to present sufficient evidence on that point at trial. The Government, on the other hand, argues that Medley was not prejudiced by the error because absent the error the outcome of the trial “would have been identical.” Gov. Supp. Br. at 6. Since it could have easily presented evidence to prove the additional element, the Government claims, Medley cannot show that his substantial rights were violated by the omission of the knowledge-of-status element. To
overruled—and, indeed, cited Promise approvingly. See Carrington, 301 F.3d at 209–11. Nonetheless, Carrington took what we had previously determined to be considerations at Olano‘s fourth prong and applied them at Olano‘s third prong. Compare Promise, 255 F.3d at 164 n.9 (rejecting appellant‘s claim under Olano‘s fourth prong because he received sufficient notice), with Carrington, 301 F.3d at 209 (rejecting appellant‘s claim under Olano‘s third prong because he received sufficient notice). However, because we conclude that Medley‘s substantial rights were violated even under Carrington‘s framework, and neither party asks us to consider whether Medley‘s substantial rights were violated regardless of whether he had actual notice, we need not resolve the potential tension between our precedent here. Under both Promise and Carrington, we are required to hold the defective indictment violated Medley‘s substantial rights.
ii.
Again, we do not write on a blank slate. We faced a similar situation in United States v. Rogers, 18 F.3d 265, 265 (4th Cir. 1994). There, the appellant asked us to vacate his conviction because of improper instructions given to the jury. Following then-existing law in this Circuit, the district court instructed the jury on the willfulness element of
Willful means no more than the Defendant charged with the duty knows what he is doing. It does not mean, in addition, he must suppose he is breaking the law.
The Government need not show that the Defendant had the specific intent to violate the law regarding the structuring of currency transactions or causing a report not to be filed or filed with a material misstatement of fact.
Id. at 267. However, before the appellant‘s case was heard on appeal, the Supreme Court, in Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U.S. 135 (1994), reversed the prior law of this Circuit. The Supreme Court held that a conviction for these crimes “required the government to prove, and the district court to so instruct, that the defendant ‘knew the structuring he undertook was unlawful’ and reversed the conviction because of the erroneous instructions given.” Rogers, 18 F.3d at 267 (quoting Ratzlaf, 510 U.S. at 138).
Because the appellant did not object to the jury instructions at trial, we reviewed for plain error. Applying the law at the time of the decision, we noted that “the failure to instruct on the defendant‘s knowledge of the illegality of his own conduct [was] an erroneous omission of an essential element of the offense charged, and thus me[t] the first”
Notwithstanding our decision in Rogers, this Court went on to conclude that “instructing the jury on the conclusiveness of an essential element” is a structural error that is not susceptible to harmless error review in United States v. Johnson, 71 F.3d 139, 144 (4th Cir. 1995).6 See United States v. David, 83 F.3d 638, 647 (4th Cir. 1996) (noting that “the failure to instruct on an element of the crime . . . is an error not susceptible to harmless error analysis“). However, this holding was effectively rendered incorrect by the Supreme Court in Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1 (1999). There, the Court considered the effect of an erroneous jury instruction, where the trial judge told the jury it “need not consider” the materiality of false statements. Id. at 6. Contrary to the trial judge‘s instruction, the
After Neder, this Court has returned to assessing erroneous jury instructions as nonstructural errors subject to plain error review. See United States v. Brown, 202 F.3d 691, 698 n.13 (4th Cir. 2000) (citing Rogers, 18 F.3d at 268). In so doing, we have recognized a few situations where failure to instruct on an element is not prejudicial. For example, in Brown we noted that when assessing whether a defendant is prejudiced by a jury instruction omission, we “ask the question: ‘Is it clear beyond a reasonable doubt that a rational jury would have found the defendant guilty absent the error?‘” 202 F.3d at 699 (quoting Neder, 527 U.S. at 18). To guide our inquiry, Brown set forth three scenarios that would permit us to conclude that a defendant was not prejudiced by an omitted element: namely, when
iii.
Neither party argues that the first and third method for determining prejudice mentioned in Brown are relevant to this case. There is nothing in the record to suggest the jury made a necessary finding that Medley knew of his prohibited status; nor is there anything in the record to suggest Medley tried to genuinely contest the knowledge-of-status element. Here, the dispute is over whether we can hold that Medley was prejudiced when there was not “overwhelming evidence” of Medley‘s knowledge of his prohibited status presented at trial and Medley did not contest this knowledge.
Medley argues that the only reason the element was uncontested was because settled circuit law at the time meant that any attempt to contest his lack of knowledge would have been futile. The Government counters that it would have easily proven Medley‘s knowledge of his prohibited status, and the only reason sufficient evidence was not introduced at trial was because Medley sought to exclude this evidence as unfairly prejudicial. Cf. Old Chief v. United States, 519 U.S. 172 (1997) (holding that the government cannot introduce evidence concerning the nature of a prior offense when a
The Government‘s contention here is not baseless. In some situations, assessing whether the Government proved the elements of the offense by “overwhelming” and “uncontroverted” evidence requires us to look at the trial record in order to glean whether the jury verdict would have been the same absent the erroneous instruction. Brown, 202 F.3d at 700 (citing Neder, 527 U.S. at 17). But where, as here, we do not have a contested element “because the element emerged as a consequence of a change in the law after trial,” we have held that it is inappropriate to speculate whether a defendant could have challenged the element that was not then at issue. Brown, 202 F.3d at 700 n.18. As we put the point previously:
[W]here the Government does not even charge the defendant with those specific violations, defense counsel could have made the strategic decision to spend valuable time before the jury challenging the Government‘s evidence on the essential elements. Speculating that a defendant could not have challenged an element not then at issue represents an untoward leap of logic.
The same must be said here. Because Medley was never put on notice that the Government had to prove he knew his prohibited status, Medley‘s knowledge of his prohibited status was orthogonal to the issues raised at trial. Thus, any time spent before the jury challenging what was irrelevant to the case at hand would have been futile. To accept the Government‘s invitation to speculate how Medley would defend against an
This is especially true when we, as appellate judges, are asked to infer a scienter requirement, which “advance[s the] basic principle of criminal law” that we only penalize those with “a vicious will.” Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 2196 (2019). Unlike determining whether an element such as materiality is satisfied, appellate judges are especially ill-equipped to evaluate a defendant‘s state of mind on a cold record. See United States v. Houston, 792 F.3d 663, 669 (6th Cir. 2015) (rejecting the application of Neder because “appellate judges are better equipped to assess materiality than to evaluate states of mind based on a cold record“). Although it may be true that Medley‘s counsel did not present a defense to his knowledge-of-prohibited status during trial—and, indeed, may have sought to exclude evidence that would have provided proof of the omitted element—the decision was made in the context of not having notice of the actual charge Medley faced. Because it is inappropriate to speculate how Medley might have defended the element in the counterfactual scenario where he was presented with the correct charge against him, we find that the instructional error in this case violated his substantial rights.
iv.
Alternatively, our decision would be the same were we to consider the trial record. The Government suggests that the evidence presented at trial was enough to support a conclusion that Medley knew his prohibited status. As support, the Government points out that the jury heard evidence that Medley fled from police when they approached him in the District of Columbia, and that there was a stipulation between the parties at trial that
Even if true, that is not enough. Precedent requires us to “conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury verdict would have been the same absent the error.” Neder, 527 U.S. at 19; see also Brown, 202 F.3d at 699 (“We . . . ask the question: ‘Is it clear beyond a reasonable doubt that a rational jury would have found the defendant guilty absent the error?‘“). That burden was not met here. Cf. Strickland, 245 F.3d at 380 (concluding beyond a reasonable doubt that “the jury verdict would have been the same had the jury been asked specifically to find” the element found by the sentencing judge). Inferring that someone knew he was prohibited from possessing a firearm at the time of the offense based on a stipulation at trial that he was in fact a prohibited person would render the Supreme Court‘s language in Rehaif pointless. See, e.g., Rehaif, 139 S. Ct. at 2197 (“Nor do we believe that Congress would have expected defendants under § 922(g) and § 924(a)(2) to know their own statuses.“); cf. id. at 2201 (Alito, J., dissenting) (“Today‘s decision will make it significantly harder to convict persons falling into some of these categories, and the decision will create a mountain of problems with respect to the thousands of prisoners currently serving terms for § 922(g) convictions.“). In addition, Medley‘s attempt to evade the police in the District of Columbia does not indicate—much less overwhelmingly prove—that he knew his prohibited status under federal law. See United States v. Aka, 339 F. Supp. 3d 11, 19 (D.D.C. 2018) (noting that D.C. firearms statutes do not track the federal
C. Cumulative Effect of the Errors
Even though we find that the indictment and trial errors independently violated Medley‘s substantial rights, it is worth further stating that the cumulative effect of those errors was also prejudicial. In some instances where courts excuse indictment errors, the defects of the indictment are thought to be cured because the defendant receives adequate notice before trial and the charge to the petit jury mitigates the concern of the error. See, e.g., Carr, 303 F.3d at 544 (“[W]hile the element of ‘by fire or an explosive’ was omitted from the grand jury indictment, it was included in the charge to the petit jury, which found the element beyond a reasonable doubt when it returned a guilty verdict.“). But see United States v. Kingrea, 573 F.3d 186, 192 (4th Cir. 2009) (“[W]e agree with [petitioner] that the indictment against him was insufficient and that the district court‘s subsequent jury instructions could not cure this fatal defect.“). Likewise, when courts excuse instructional errors, it is often in the context of the defendant receiving adequate notice in his indictment (even if there remains a question on whether the issue is a sentencing factor for the judge or an element for the jury to decide). See, e.g., Neder, 527 U.S. at 6 (“[T]he District Court instructed the jury that, to convict on the tax offenses, it ‘need not consider’ the materiality
Here, the errors occurred at the inception of the Government‘s case against Medley and continued throughout. Put another way, the error was not just a single, simple procedural error—but a combination of errors that tainted many of the basic protections that permit us to regard criminal punishment as fundamentally fair. First, the Government failed to provide Medley with adequate notice of the charges against him in his indictment. Second, Medley‘s conviction was predicated on an indictment that fails to allege an essential element of the offense and on a verdict by a jury that was not instructed on that element. Third, scant evidence regarding the omitted element was presented at trial. Finally, Medley had no reason to contest the omitted element at any point in the proceedings and, therefore, did not contest the element. We find that the compilation of these errors also affected Medley‘s substantial rights.
IV.
Having found that Medley‘s substantial rights were violated by these errors, we must decide whether to exercise our discretion to correct them. See Olano, 507 U.S. at 732. Correcting an error is not automatic. Rather, we exercise our discretion only “if the error ‘seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.‘” Id. (internal citations omitted). As the Supreme Court has made clear, “[a]n error may ‘seriously affect the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial
There can be no question that the rights involved in this case are central to upholding the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of our judicial proceedings. “By including the Grand Jury Clause in the Bill of Rights, the Framers—mindful of the intimidating force and presence of a strong national government and the potential for abuse of that force—recognized the need to interpose a group of common local citizens between the accused and the sovereign.” Floresca, 38 F.3d at 714. And we have previously stated that “the wisdom of the Framers in this regard has stood the test of time; thus, depriving an accused of the protection of the grand jury would be, no less today than yesterday, intolerably unfair.” Id. (emphasis added). Thus, even for certain standalone Fifth Amendment grand jury violations, we have proclaimed that “[w]e do not hesitate to say that convicting a defendant of an unindicted crime affects the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of federal judicial proceedings in a manner most serious.” Id.; see also Kingrea, 573 F.3d at 194 (vacating a conviction because the indictment omitted an essential element).
The other constitutional claims at stake are just as important to protecting the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of our judicial proceedings. The Supreme Court
Evaluating these errors in the aggregate also helps to further understand how this case differs from those where the Supreme Court has been willing to excuse the individual errors. See, e.g, Cotton, 535 U.S. at 625 (2002) (indictment); Neder, 527 U.S. at 1 (jury instruction); Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461 (1997) (jury instruction). As revealed by those decisions, a defect in an indictment or a jury instruction will generally not be corrected at Olano‘s fourth prong when the record evidence related to the defective part of the indictment or instruction is “overwhelming” and “essentially uncontroverted.” Although the Government has not had to prove the knowledge-of-status element beyond a reasonable doubt,7 it has provided substantial post-trial evidence supporting Medley‘s
Indeed, the facts of the case at bar should give anyone pause about relying on an efficient scheme of criminal justice that depends too much on the State. See Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 498 (Scalia, J., concurring) (“Judges, it is sometimes necessary to remind ourselves, are part of the State-and an increasingly bureaucratic part of it, at that.“). Medley was indicted on a defective charging instrument. Medley chose to exercise his jury trial right and defend himself against three separate counts of criminal conduct. The jury acquitted Medley of two counts, and it convicted him of the third—based on what we now know was
Were this Court to affirm Medley‘s conviction “simply to avoid burdening [the] criminal justice system[],” Ramos, 140 S. Ct. at 1410, we would diminish the public faith in the integrity of our courts. What gives people confidence in our justice system is not that we merely get things right. See Cedelle, 89 F.3d at 186 n.4 (recognizing circumstances “may exist where the proceedings contain an error that seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judiciary even though the record demonstrates
In short, the issue here is about whether the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of judicial proceedings are in question where a defendant was not put on notice of an essential element, did not have the Government list all the elements at trial, did not have the jury of his peers hear sufficient evidence regarding an element, and did not have the district court identify the element in its instructions to the jury. Taken individually, each of these would give us pause. Taken collectively, we are confident that failing to notice these errors would seriously affect the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of judicial proceedings.
V.
For all the reasons stated above, we find that the failure to include the knowledge-of-status element in Medley‘s indictment was a plain error affecting his substantial rights. We also find that the district court‘s failure to instruct the jury that it had to find Medley knew his prohibited status, and the Government‘s failure to present sufficient evidence on that point at trial, was a plain error affecting Medley‘s substantial rights. And, finally, we find that these collective errors seriously affect the fairness, integrity, and public reputation of the court. We therefore vacate Medley‘s § 922(g)(1) conviction and remand with instructions to the district court to enter judgment dismissing this count without prejudice.
VACATED AND REMANDED, WITH INSTRUCTIONS
After a federal jury convicted Jevon Medley of unlawful possession of a firearm as a felon under
Plain-error review, as is well known, requires us to determine more than whether a clear error occurred. We must also ask whether the error was prejudicial and, if uncorrected, would result in a miscarriage of justice. Helpfully, the Supreme Court has defined in simple, logical terms the question that guides this prejudice inquiry: did the error likely make a difference in the outcome of the lower court proceeding? Molina-Martinez v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1338, 1343 (2016). And similarly, the Court has explained that a miscarriage of justice results when an error “seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id. (citation omitted). Generally, such a miscarriage does not occur when, despite the error, the proceedings “resulted in a fair and reliable determination of guilt.” United States v. Ramirez-Castillo, 748 F.3d 205, 217 (4th Cir. 2014) (citing United States v. Cedelle, 89 F.3d 181, 186 (4th Cir. 1996)). This common-sense approach ensures that we do not needlessly vacate a lower-court decision
If ever there was a case in which the errors likely had no effect on the outcome of the proceedings, and the proceedings led to a fair and reliable determination of guilt, this is it. To be sure, the felon-in-possession charge in Medley‘s indictment did not allege that he knew he was previously convicted of “a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” when he possessed the relevant firearm.
But before possessing the firearm, Medley served over twelve years in prison for second-degree murder. And he remained on parole at the time of his arrest. Medley also stipulated at trial he “had been convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year,” and that “[t]he civil rights he forfeited as a result of that conviction, including his right to possess a firearm, had not been restored.” J.A. 2430. Accordingly, it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine that Medley did not know he had been convicted of “a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.”
Despite this, the majority concludes that the Rehaif errors require us to vacate Medley‘s conviction because they affected his substantial rights and the integrity of the judicial proceedings. Because, in my view, the record evidence overwhelmingly indicates
Significantly, the majority‘s decision also breaks from every other circuit that has addressed these issues. Like our decision in United States v. Gary, 954 F.3d 194 (4th Cir. 2020), which addressed the effect of Rehaif errors on guilty pleas, we chart our own path on the effect of Rehaif errors in the context of a jury trial. In my view, it is the wrong path.
Further, I fear the potential implications of today‘s decision. That the decision will certainly impact countless challenges to felon-in-possession convictions does not, alone, concern me. What does concern me is the profound impact that will result from the application of legal standards that stray from Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit precedent. And I am concerned that today‘s decision confuses the well-established standards that
In addition to the Rehaif claims that are the focus of the majority‘s decision, Medley raises other challenges to his felon-in-possession conviction and sentence. Regarding his conviction, Medley challenges the district court‘s denial of his motion to suppress statements he made to the police, without the benefit of counsel, about the gun involved in the felon-in-possession charge. Regarding his sentence, he argues that the district court‘s application of a Sentencing Guidelines enhancement, based on its finding that Medley used the firearm to commit a carjacking, violated his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial because it was based on acquitted conduct.
For the reasons set forth below, I would reject Medley‘s Rehaif claims and additional challenges, and affirm the judgment of the district court.
I.
On December 30, 2016, Prince George‘s County, Maryland police officials responded to a report of a carjacking and shooting at an apartment complex. At the scene, they discovered Elton Wright, who had multiple gunshot wounds to his leg and hip. Wright had been walking to his car when a masked man with a gun confronted him and demanded his keys. When Wright tried to flee, the man shot him, took the keys and fled in Wright‘s car. Wright did not recognize the man, but noted that the gun appeared to be “a .45 . . . or some type of Glock.” J.A. 1815, 1826.
The resident of the house told the officers that he did not know Medley, and that Medley entered his home without permission. He allowed the officers to search the part of the home where Medley had hidden. There, the officers recovered a .45 caliber semi-automatic handgun made by the Rock Island Armory (“Rock Island Firearm“) and a 9mm Glock, model 17. They arrested Medley for carrying a firearm without a license, in violation of District of Columbia law.
On January 2, 2017, Medley was charged in D.C. Superior Court with Unlawful Possession of a Firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of
After several weeks, Darren Dalton, a detective involved with the Prince George‘s County Police Department‘s investigation of the Maryland carjacking, received notice from the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network database that shell casings recovered from the scene of the carjacking were possibly linked to the Rock Island Firearm recovered during Medley‘s arrest. Dalton asked the county‘s Firearms Examination Unit for an official comparison and, a few days later, they reported that the shell casings “were
Within days, Detective Dalton and two other officers from Prince George‘s County traveled to D.C. to interview Medley. Dalton introduced himself to Medley as a Prince George‘s County detective and explained that he wished to speak about the guns recovered during Medley‘s D.C. arrest. He said he was not from the D.C. police department and that he was there to discuss a Maryland carjacking investigation, not the details of Medley‘s D.C. case.
Detective Dalton advised Medley of his Miranda rights, and Medley indicated he understood them. During the interview, Medley did not mention his appointed counsel in the D.C. case, ask for the conversation to stop or request a lawyer. Dalton testified that at the time of the interview, he did not know that Medley was represented by an attorney in his D.C. case.
Medley told Detective Dalton that he purchased the Rock Island Firearm four days before his arrest in D.C. He stated that he was the only person to possess the gun during that four-day period. When Medley became hesitant about answering more of Dalton‘s questions, Dalton stopped the interview.
Based in part on Medley‘s statements, a federal grand jury in the District of Maryland indicted Medley for carjacking resulting in serious bodily injury, in violation of
Medley moved to suppress the statements he made to Detective Dalton. He argued that Dalton obtained those statements “in violation of . . . his right to counsel as guaranteed by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution.” J.A. 8. The district court denied Medley‘s motion, holding that the officers did not violate Medley‘s Fifth Amendment rights or Sixth Amendment right to counsel because Medley voluntarily waived those rights by answering Dalton‘s questions without an attorney present after receiving Miranda warnings. The district court explained that because Medley “didn‘t ask for counsel” and “didn‘t invoke counsel” after receiving his Miranda warnings, the police were free to question him. J.A. 599. Relying on Montejo v. Louisiana, 556 U.S. 778 (2009), the court held Medley‘s waiver of his Miranda rights also waived his Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
After a five-day trial,1 the jury convicted Medley of the felon-in-possession charge, but acquitted him of the two charges related to the carjacking. At sentencing, the presentence investigation report (“PSR”) assigned Medley a base offense level of 20 under
The district court agreed with Probation finding, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Medley used the Rock Island Firearm in connection with the carjacking of Wright. It then adopted the PSR‘s enhanced Guidelines calculations and sentenced Medley to 78 months imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release.
Medley filed a timely notice of appeal, challenging both his conviction and his sentence. As to the conviction, Medley contends the district court violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel by admitting the statements he made to Maryland police after he was appointed counsel in his D.C. case. Regarding his sentence, Medley first argues that the enhancement violated his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial because it was based on acquitted conduct. He also contends that the district court clearly erred by enhancing
Also, in supplemental briefing requested by this Court, Medley argues that under the Supreme Court‘s recent decision in Rehaif, the indictment‘s failure to charge that he knew he was a felon when he possessed the Rock Island Firearm, and the district court‘s failure to instruct the jury on that element, requires us to vacate his conviction.
We have jurisdiction under
II.
Since the majority‘s decision addresses only Medley‘s Rehaif challenges, I begin there. As the majority notes, Medley argues that after Rehaif, two errors in the trial-court proceedings violated his constitutional rights and require us to vacate his conviction. First, he claims that the indictment failed to allege that when he possessed the Rock Island Firearm, he knew that he had been convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison. Second, Medley argues that the district court failed to instruct the jury on that element, depriving him of his right to have a jury find every element of the charged offense.
Because Medley did not preserve these issues at trial, we review his claims for plain error. See Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 135 (2009);
For starters, the indictment and jury-instruction deficiencies constitute errors, and those errors were plain. Indeed, the government does not contest these issues. Thus, there is no dispute about whether Medley carried his burden with respect to Olano‘s first two prongs.
As to the third prong, neither the Supreme Court nor our Court have held that an indictment error “falls within the ‘limited class’ of ‘structural errors’ that ‘can be corrected regardless of their effect on the outcome.‘” See, e.g., United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 632 (2002). Therefore, we must determine whether omitting the knowledge-of-status element from the indictment affected Medley‘s substantial rights. See Olano, 507 U.S. at 732.
Likewise, the jury instructions’ omission of the knowledge-of-status element is not a structural error. While this Court previously held that “the failure to instruct [the jury] on an element of the crime, where the jury never made the constitutionally required findings” was such an error, United States v. David, 83 F.3d 638, 647 (4th Cir. 1996), the Supreme Court effectively overruled David. In Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 9 (1999), the Court held that the omission of an element in a jury instruction is a non-structural error that
For non-structural errors under Olano‘s third prong, the defendant bears the burden of establishing that each error affected his substantial rights through “a showing of individual prejudice.” United States v. Marcus, 560 U.S. 258, 265 (2010). The Supreme Court has stated that a defendant makes this showing by establishing “a reasonable probability that, but for the error, the outcome of the [district court] proceeding would have been different.” Molina-Martinez, 136 S. Ct. at 1343 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see United States v. Denton, 944 F.3d 170, 185 (4th Cir. 2019). Under this standard, “‘the fact that an error is not harmless does not necessarily mean it’ affected the defendant‘s substantial rights.” United States v. Hastings, 134 F.3d 235, 240 (4th Cir. 1998) (citing United States v. McKinney, 954 F.2d 471, 475 (7th Cir. 1992)). Therefore, Medley must do more than “establish that it is impossible to tell whether the verdict returned by
the jury” was a result of the error. Hastings, 134 F.3d at 243. Instead, he must show that it is reasonably probable that the error had a “substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the . . . verdict.” United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 81 (2004) (citation omitted); see also Hastings, 134 F.3d at 243–44. Accordingly, the question here is whether there is a reasonable probability that, but for either error, Medley would not have been convicted of the felon-in-possession charge.
But even if the district court‘s failure to include the knowledge-of-status element in the indictment and the jury instructions affected Medley‘s substantial rights,3 we may not, under Olano‘s fourth prong, exercise our discretion to correct these errors unless they “seriously affect the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Cotton, 535 U.S. at 632–33. And central to this analysis in a criminal case “is a determination of whether, based on the record in its entirety, the proceedings against the accused resulted in a fair and reliable determination of guilt.” Ramirez-Castillo, 748 F.3d at 217 (citing Cedelle, 89 F.3d at 186).
And notably, Medley‘s case contrasts sharply with the examples of the types of defendants that Rehaif sought to protect. For example, Medley is not “a person who was convicted of a prior crime but sentenced only to probation, who does not know that the crime is ‘punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.‘” Rehaif, 139 U.S. at 2198 (quoting
Lastly, my conclusion aligns with every other circuit—literally, every one—that has addressed these issues. When defendants have claimed essentially identical Rehaif indictment and jury-instruction errors, our sister circuits have uniformly held that Olano‘s third and fourth prongs are not satisfied when their records similarly compelled the conclusion that the defendants knew they were felons at the time of their gun possession. See, e.g., United States v. Maez, 960 F.3d 949, 964 (7th Cir. 2020) (affirming felon-in-possession conviction where a defendant stipulated to his felon status and had previously served a total of 23 years in prison); United States v. Ward, 957 F.3d 691, 695 (6th Cir. 2020) (affirming felon-in-possession conviction where defendant stipulated to his felon status, had served a total of six years in prison, and was on supervised release at the time of the offense); United States v. Huntsberry, 956 F.3d 270, 285–86 (5th Cir. 2020)
III.
The majority reaches a different conclusion. It recognizes both errors after finding that they affected Medley‘s substantial rights and undermined the fairness and integrity of judicial proceedings. I feel compelled to explain my disagreements with those conclusions and the standards applied to reach them.
A.
Since there is no dispute that Medley satisfied the first two prongs required for a plain error-review under Olano, I begin with the majority‘s reasons for concluding that both errors affected Medley‘s substantial rights.
Regarding the indictment error, the majority holds that “[s]ince Medley‘s indictment failed to satisfy the notice function of an indictment through its charging language and description of overt acts, its defects violated Medley‘s substantial rights.” Ante at 18. But in my view, that does not end the inquiry for analyzing whether this error was prejudicial under plain-error review. Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit precedent requires us to examine whether there is “a reasonable probability that, but for the error, the outcome of the [district court] proceeding would have been different.” Molina-Martinez, 136 S. Ct. at 1343 (internal citation and quotation marks omitted); see Denton, 944 F.3d at 185. Focusing singularly on notice, the majority fails to ask this fundamental and required question.
The majority traces much of its approach to our decision in United States v. Promise, 255 F.3d 150 (4th Cir. 2001) (en banc). It interprets our fractured en banc decision to conclude that “because the indictment failed to allege, and the jury failed to find, [the specific amount of cocaine base attributed to him as an element of the offense], the appellant‘s substantial rights were violated.” Ante at 13. In my view, the majority misinterprets Promise.
As an initial matter, Promise involved different issues from those we face here. There, the defendant argued that his sentence was unlawful under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), because his indictment did not allege, and the jury did not find, the threshold drug quantity required to impose the increased penalty he received for his drug-
Second, the majority misconstrues Promise‘s holding. There, we did not conclude that the indictment error affected Promise‘s substantial rights “because the indictment failed to allege, and the jury failed to find” the additional drug quantity needed to support his sentence. Ante at 13 (emphasis added). Instead, we held that the error affected Promise‘s substantial rights because he demonstrated that it resulted in individual prejudice—namely, his sentence was ten years longer than the maximum sentence he could have lawfully received based on the drug quantity alleged by the indictment and found by the jury. See Promise, 255 F.3d at 160. No such individual prejudice is evident from the record here.
The majority next contends that in United States v. Carrington, 301 F.3d 204 (4th Cir. 2002), another case where the defendant challenged his sentence under Apprendi, we suggested “that a defendant is prejudiced by an incomplete indictment if ‘the protections
In addition to presenting different circumstances from those we face here, Carrington does not purport to establish the third-prong standard articulated by the majority for plain-error review of indictment errors. There, the defendant challenged his sentence based, in part, on the government‘s failure to allege a drug quantity in his drug conspiracy charge. Carrington, 301 F.3d at 209. And we agreed that the “indictment‘s failure . . . to include a specific drug amount in the charging language” constituted a plain error. Id. at 210. However, we noted that “[u]nlike the indictment considered by the Supreme Court in Cotton, in which no drug quantity was alleged anywhere in the indictment, the indictment [there], while not satisfying the requirement of alleging drug quantity in the charging language, still fulfilled the notice purpose of an indictment through its description in the overt acts.” Id. Therefore, we held the “the protections provided by an indictment were not compromised,” and the error “did not affect Carrington‘s substantial rights.” Id. Carrington does note that indictments must protect a defendant‘s rights “(1) to be notified of the charges against him by a description of each element of the offense, and (2) to be provided an accurate record of the charges against him” to prevent a subsequent prosecution for the same offense. Nowhere does it say, however, that the degree to which an indictment protects these two rights determines whether an indictment error prejudiced a defendant under Olano‘s third prong. Id. at 209. The majority appears to have
Further, reading Carrington to establish the rule the majority claims requires us to turn our back on well-established Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit precedent, under which we must look beyond the mere existence of an error to determine if, but for that error, the result of the lower-court proceeding would have been likely been different. See, e.g., Molina-Martinez, 136 S. Ct. at 1343 (stating that an error affects a defendant‘s substantial rights if there is “‘a reasonable probability that, but for the error,’ the outcome of the proceeding would have been different” (quoting Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. at 76)); Hastings, 134 F.3d at 240 (stating that an error affects a defendant‘s substantial rights if “the error actually affected the outcome of the proceedings,” and collecting cases demonstrating a cross-circuit consensus). In my view, even under the majority‘s reading of Carrington, a standard implicitly “suggested” by this Court cannot displace a standard expressly required by the Supreme Court.
What‘s more, the notice-based prejudice standard that the majority claims these cases established is essentially the same as the standard for determining whether an indictment error exists in the first place. See, e.g., Russell v. United States, 369 U.S. 749, 763–64 (1962) (stating that whether the indictment provides adequate notice of the elements of a criminal charge, and enables a defendant to plead a former acquittal or conviction for the same offense, are the two “criteria by which the sufficiency of an indictment is to be measured”). In other words, the majority‘s standard conflates the first
Our precedent requires a determination that, but for the error, it is reasonably likely that the result would have been different. None of the cases cited by Medley or the majority justify the failure to apply this standard under Olano‘s third prong.
As with the indictment error, the majority concludes that the error in the jury instructions affected Medley‘s substantial rights. The majority reaches this conclusion for two reasons.
The majority first concludes that, since we have no way to know how Medley might have defended the knowledge-of-status element, we should consider Olano‘s third prong satisfied, without even attempting to evaluate whether Medley was prejudiced by the instructional error. Specifically, it reasons that “[b]ecause it is inappropriate to speculate how Medley might have defended the element in the counterfactual scenario where he was presented with the correct charges against him, we find that the instructional error in this case violated his substantial rights.” Ante at 25.
Despite this conclusion, the majority undertakes a prejudice inquiry as an alternative basis for its third-prong conclusion. In doing so, it finds that the error affected Medley‘s substantial rights because the government did not meet its burden to show “beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury verdict [in Medley‘s case] would have been the same absent the error.” Ante at 26 (quoting Neder, 527 U.S. at 19) (emphasis original).
But in its analysis of both reasons, the majority applies the standard for harmless-error review of preserved errors instead of the standard for plain-error review of unpreserved errors. More specifically, the majority relies on the Supreme Court‘s decision in Neder and our decision in United States v. Brown, 202 F.3d 691 (4th Cir. 2000) in explaining both of its reasons. Those cases, however, involved erroneous jury instructions
So, rather than asking whether Medley has met his burden of establishing there was “a reasonable probability that, but for the error, the outcome of the [district court]
Further, it is important to recognize the practical effect of the majority‘s initial conclusion that the instructional error violated Medley‘s substantial rights “[b]ecause it is inappropriate to speculate how Medley might have defended the element in the counterfactual scenario where he was presented with the correct charges against him . . . .” Ante at 25. Under this reasoning, any time a change in law adds an element to an offense of conviction, the absence of that element from prior jury instructions necessarily affects a defendant‘s substantial rights. Thus, as with its analysis of the indictment error, the majority‘s initial conclusion effectively transforms the omission of an element from jury instructions as a de facto structural error, in conflict with the Supreme Court‘s holding in Neder. See Neder, 527 U.S. at 9.
B.
After concluding that these errors affected Medley‘s substantial rights, the majority exercised its discretion to notice the errors because they “fall within the category of errors that warrant correction.” Ante at 29. I disagree with the majority on this issue as well.
Second, when the majority considers the evidence of Medley‘s knowledge that he had been convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison, it concludes that such evidence is overwhelming. However, despite that, it exercises its discretion to notice the Rehaif errors because, under the law at the time of Medley‘s trial, he had no reason to, and thus did not, contest his knowledge of his prohibited status. Ante at 31-32. According to the majority, this means the evidence of Medley‘s knowledge was not uncontroverted and distinguishes Medley‘s case from Neder, Johnson and Cotton. Id.
To begin, I agree with the majority that the evidence of Medley‘s guilt was overwhelming. And I also agree that Medley had no obvious reason, at the time of his trial,
Finally, I disagree with the majority’s attempt to paint the trial-court proceedings as a confluence of errors, where “too much went wrong” for us not to recognize the Rehaif errors and vacate Medley’s conviction. Ante at 33 (quoting United States v. Lockhart, 947 F.3d 187, 199 (4th Cir. 2020) (Wilkinson, J., concurring)). Neither the indictment nor the jury instructions included the knowledge-of-status element. These errors stemmed from the same defect, caused by a post-conviction change in law, that affected two aspects of Medley’s trial. But the majority’s fourth-prong analysis also points to the fact that Medley was acquitted of other charges. Acquittals of separate charges hardly constitute an irregularity, much less an error. Accordingly, this is not a case like Lockhart, where, in addition to a Rehaif error, the district-court proceedings were infected by a separate,
In sum, our precedent requires us to examine the record to determine if, despite the errors under review, Medley’s trial “resulted in a fair and reliable determination of guilt,” Ramirez-Castillo, 748 F.3d at 217 (citing Cedelle, 89 F.3d at 186), and did not otherwise “seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Cotton, 535 U.S. at 632–33. For the reasons set forth above, the overwhelming and uncontroverted evidence that Medley knew he had been convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison, despite the omitted element, assures us that his conviction need not be vacated.
IV.
Since I would reject Medley’s Rehaif claims, I must now consider his other challenges to his conviction and sentence.
A.
I begin with Medley’s claim that the district court violated his
1.
I must first consider whether Medley’s
However, “when the
As noted above, Medley concedes that he was not federally charged at the time of his interview. However, he argues that the right to counsel nevertheless attached to his federal felon-in-possession charge because it is the same offense as the D.C. felon-in-possession charge. In evaluating this claim, I evaluate whether the District of Columbia and federal government are the same sovereign before turning to whether the D.C. and federal felon-in-possession statutes satisfy the Blockburger test.
To determine whether the District of Columbia and the federal government are the same sovereign, we ask “whether the prosecutorial powers of the two jurisdictions have independent origins” or “whether those powers derive from the same ultimate source.” Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle, 136 S. Ct. 1863, 1867 (2016). The Supreme Court has held that the District of Columbia’s prosecutorial power “derived from, rather than preexisted association with, the Federal Government.” Id. at 1875. The Constitution grants “unqualified power” to Congress “[t]o exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over” the District of Columbia.
The government’s opposition to this conclusion appears based primarily on the fact that the interview was carried out by Maryland law enforcement as opposed to D.C. law enforcement. But as set forth, this argument ignores the applicable test for separate sovereigns under Supreme Court precedent. Following that precedent, the District of Columbia and the federal government derive their power from the same ultimate source and, thus, are not separate sovereigns.
b.
Having determined the District of Columbia and the federal government are the same sovereign, I next consider whether Medley’s federal felon-in-possession charge is the “same offense” as his D.C. felon-in-possession charge under the Blockburger test. In Blockburger, the Supreme Court explained that “where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one, is whether each provision requires
With this guidance in mind, I turn to the text of the applicable statutes. At the time of Medley’s guilty plea, D.C.’s unlawful possession of a firearm statute stated, in pertinent part:
(a) No person shall own or keep a firearm, or have a firearm in his or her possession or under his or her control, within the District of Columbia, if the person:
(1) Has been convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year . . . .
(g) It shall be unlawful for any person—
(1) who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year; [. . .]
to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.
The statutes’ substantive elements are essentially the same. Both require proof that the defendant possessed a firearm and has a prior felony conviction. However, the statutes have different jurisdictional elements. The federal statute requires proof that the firearm affected or traveled in interstate commerce, whereas the D.C. statute requires that the unlawful possession be “within the District of Columbia.”
Our question, then, is whether to consider statutes’ jurisdictional elements under the Blockburger double-jeopardy test. While two of our sister circuits are split on this issue,10 our precedent calls us to consider differences in jurisdictional elements when conducting Blockburger analysis. We addressed this issue in United States v. Jones, 797 F.2d 184,
Count 1 requires proof that the acts were done within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States. This is not a requirement under Count 2. However, Count 2 does require proof that the tickets were received after they moved in interstate commerce and that they were a part of interstate commerce when received. The proof of these additional facts satisfies the Blockburger test.
Id. at 186–87. We found that these distinct jurisdictional elements demonstrated that “[t]he congressional purpose . . . [was] to prevent the receipt of stolen property on federal land and water by enacting
In McGann, the defendant was convicted of robbery “of a national bank” under
Likewise, Holness, although ultimately decided based on the fact that the Maryland and federal crimes were prosecuted by separate sovereigns—the state of Maryland and the federal government—is consistent with Jones and McGann. There, we also noted that the two offenses “failed the Blockburger test” partially because “interstate travel must be shown in connection with the federal offense, but no such condition adheres to the state offense.” Holness, 706 F.3d at 590–91.11
2.
However, even if Medley’s
A defendant who wishes to invoke his
A defendant’s failure to invoke his
Turning to the facts here, Medley never made a clear, unambiguous assertion of his right to counsel after receiving his Miranda warnings. He did not request his attorney, ask
That, however, does not end our waiver inquiry. A defendant who waives his
What is at issue is whether Dalton’s representations prevented Medley from making a knowing or voluntary waiver of his
Further, the subsequent federal indictment of Medley for both the carjacking and felon in possession charges does not establish that Dalton’s representations to Medley were false. Dalton was responsible for conducting a state carjacking investigation. The subsequent federal decision to use Medley’s statements to add a felon-in-possession charge does not show that Dalton tricked Medley into waiving his
B.
I now turn to Medley’s claim that the district court erred by enhancing his sentence after finding—based on a preponderance of the evidence—that he used the Rock Island Firearm in connection with the carjacking of Elton Wright. This argument has two components. First, Medley claims that the four-level sentencing enhancement described earlier violated his
Medley first argues that the sentencing enhancement violated his
“Sentencing judges may find facts relevant to determining a Guidelines range by a preponderance of the evidence, so long as that Guidelines sentence is treated as advisory and falls within the statutory maximum authorized by the jury’s verdict” United States v. Grubbs, 585 F.3d 793, 799 (4th Cir. 2009) (quoting United States v. Benkahla, 530 F.3d 300, 312 (4th Cir. 2008)); see also United States v. Slager, 912 F.3d 224, 233 (4th Cir. 2019) (“When sentencing courts engage in fact finding, preponderance of the evidence is the appropriate standard of proof.”) (internal citation omitted). Relevant here, this includes conduct for which a defendant has been acquitted. “[C]lear Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit precedent hold that a sentencing court may consider uncharged and acquitted conduct in determining a sentence, as long as that conduct is proven by a preponderance of the evidence.” Grubbs, 585 F.3d at 798–99. In United States v. Watts, 519 U.S. 148, 157 (1997), the Supreme Court clearly stated that “a jury’s verdict of acquittal does not prevent the sentencing court from considering conduct underlying the acquitted charge, so long as that conduct has been proven by a preponderance of the evidence.” Likewise, in United States v. Jones, 31 F.3d 1304, 1316 (4th Cir. 1994), this Court held that a “defendant need
Following those cases, if the Guidelines are treated as advisory, and the sentence does not exceed the statutory maximum, a court’s consideration of acquitted conduct “‘does not violate the
To his credit, Medley concedes that his
2.
Medley also argues that the district court’s application of this sentencing enhancement, based on its finding that Medley used the Rock Island Firearm to carjack Elton Wright, constituted clear error. Instead, he claims that “substantial evidence” demonstrates that someone else committed the carjacking. Appellant’s Opening Brief at 57.
With that standard in mind, I turn to the district court’s decision. In support of its finding that Medley used the Rock Island Firearm in the carjacking of Wright, the district court pointed to the testimony of several eyewitnesses at the scene who identified Medley as the carjacker. It also relied on the testimony of Scott McVeigh from the Prince George’s County Police Department’s firearms examination unit. Without objection from Medley, the district court qualified McVeigh as an expert in firearm toolmark analysis. McVeigh testified that guns leave certain markings on bullets that they fire. Forensic firearm examiners attempt to match bullets or shell casings from a crime scene to a particular gun by comparing the marks on the recovered evidence—known as “toolmarks”—with marks on those test-fired from the gun in question. McVeigh testified about his evaluation and report that the shell casings found at the scene of the carjacking were fired from the Rock Island Firearm. The district court also pointed to the testimony of Richard Fennern, an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team, regarding the historical cell-site data of Medley’s cellphone. Without objection, the district court
Medley argues this evidence is insufficient to support the district court’s finding. Medley first criticizes the testimony from eyewitnesses who identified him at the scene. He emphasizes that Elton Wright—the carjacking victim—could not identify his assailant due to the mask that he was wearing. Wright described the assailant as a heavier black male who was a little over six-feet tall, a contrast from Medley’s shorter, leaner frame. Wright also testified he had known Medley for about three years and saw him two to three times a week and thus it would be “easy” for him to recognize Medley’s voice. J.A. 1823. However, Wright did not recognize the voice, appearance or walk of the man who shot him. And Medley also argues that Wright and the other eyewitnesses offered physical descriptions of the assailant that did not clearly implicate Medley and were, at times, inconsistent.
Medley also attacks McVeigh’s testimony. Appellant’s Opening Brief at 62. Medley criticized the subjective nature of McVeigh’s testimony, as well as his concession that there were some inconsistencies between the shell markings and markings that would come from the equipment at the Rock Island factory and the fact Medley’s testimony amounted only
Finally, Medley argues Fennern’s testimony was insufficient to support the district court’s finding that he was the carjacker. He pointed to Fennern’s concession that cell tower data can be used to determine the “general location” of a cellphone at the time of a specific call, J.A. 2046, and that he could not determine the exact location of a phone based on the nearest cell towers. Therefore, Medley argues that the fact that his phone was in the same “general location” of Wright’s apartment on the morning of the carjacking has “minimal probative value.” Appellant’s Opening Brief at 63.
Medley’s arguments have some appeal. However, on this issue, we do not work from a clean slate. We are bound to affirm the district court’s factual findings unless they “are against the clear weight of the evidence considered as a whole.” Span, 789 F.3d at 325. Clear error review requires deference to the trial court’s findings even if we may view certain issues differently. Walker, 922 F.3d at 253. Under that high standard, I cannot say that the district court erred by enhancing Medley’s sentence when it found, based on a preponderance of the evidence, that he used the Rock Island Firearm in connection with the carjacking of Elton Wright.
In conclusion, in my view, the Rehaif errors did not seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Further, the district court did not violate Medley’s