South Carolina Lawyers Weekly

Having determined that the policies at issue constituted an insurance contract under Virginia law, the court said a private day school was not required to submit its dispute to arbitration because the agreement containing the arbitration clause is part of ...

In reviewing a former police officer’s appeal of his sentence for willfully shooting an unarmed man, the appellate panel found the district court did not err in concluding that second-degree murder was the appropriate cross-reference, as each of defendant’s four ...

  In a case where the defendant filed his latest appeal in 2013, the court found his erroneous designation as a career offender required the district court to sentence him to between 262 and 327 months under then mandatory Sentencing ...

Claims by a defendant convicted of conspiracy in a luxury car scheme that a judge’s jury instruction constructively amended the indictment against him in violation of the Fifth Amendment, was rejected, as the instruction did not alter the element of ...

  Owens v. Baltimore City State’s Attorneys Office (Lawyers Weekly No. 001-168-14, 74 pp.) (Motz, J.) No. 12-2173, Sept. 24, 2014; 4th Cir. Holding: A man who served 20 years in prison for a rape and murder he did not ...

Tagged with: Statute of Limitations

Injeti v. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Servs. A district court did not err in finding an Indian citizen was ineligible for U.S. citizenship because she had not been lawfully admitted for permanent residence based on immigration officials’ determination that she had submitted a fraudulent death certificate for her first husband; however, the 4th Circuit vacates the district court decision that appellant had failed to demonstrate good moral character.

U.S. v. Savage Appellant, as a D.C. offender, was “in the custody of” the Bureau of Prisons for purposes of certification under 18 U.S.C. § 4248 as a “sexually dangerous person,” and the 4th Circuit affirms the district court decision that it had jurisdiction to adjudicate appellant as a “sexually dangerous person.”

U.S. v. Simmons : A defendant’s payouts as a return on investment to two early investors in his Ponzi scheme were “essential expenses” of his underlying fraudulent scheme and the 4th Circuit vacates defendant’s money-laundering convictions based on these payments, but affirms defendant’s securities and wire fraud convictions and remands for resentencing.

McAfee v. Boczar The 4th Circuit reduces an attorney’s fee award of $322,340.50 to a flat fee of $100,000, in this suit in which the plaintiff won a jury award of $2,943.60 for her claim that defendant deputy sheriff violated her Fourth Amendment rights by arresting her without probable cause to believe the plaintiff had violated a Virginia statute requiring disclosure of the location of a dog who bit plaintiff.

U.S. ex rel. Steven May v. Purdue Pharma LP Although a relator in an earlier False Claims Act suit against defendant pharmaceutical company saw his FCA suit dismissed pursuant to a general release he signed to obtain a severance package when he was laid off as sales manager, that release was personal to the sales manager and does not bar a later FCA suit filed by two new relators – the sales manager’s wife and another sales representative for defendant.

Tagged with: OxyContin