4th Circuit: COVID-19 discrimination, torture petition, gun smuggling, more

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Criminal; sentencing explanation

BOTTOM LINE: Where the district court adequately explained why it sentenced a man who pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon to 63 months’ imprisonment, the sentence was affirmed.

CASE: United States v. Heaggeans, Case No. 25-4141 (filed Nov. 4, 2025) (per curiam).

FACTS: Antwaun O. Heaggeans pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The district court varied upward and sentenced Heaggeans to 63 months’ imprisonment.

Heaggeans asserts that § 922(g)(1) is facially unconstitutional and unconstitutional as applied to him following New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, in which the Supreme Court held that a firearm regulation is valid under the Second Amendment only if it “is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Heaggeans further argues that his sentence is procedurally unreasonable because the district court did not provide an adequate explanation for the imposed sentence.

LAW: Two recent decisions foreclose Heaggeans’s Second Amendment challenges on appeal. In United States v. Canada, 123 F.4th 159 (4th Cir. 2024), this court considered and rejected a constitutional challenge to § 922(g)(1), holding that “[s]ection 922(g)(1) is facially constitutional because it has a plainly legitimate sweep and may constitutionally be applied in at least some set of circumstances.” Likewise, in United States v. Hunt, 123 F.4th 697 (4th Cir. 2024), the court affirmed “the Supreme Court’s repeated instruction that longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons . . . are presumptively lawful.”

Turning to Heaggeans’s sentencing challenge, “[a] district court is required to provide an individualized assessment based on the facts before the court, and to explain adequately the sentence imposed to allow for meaningful appellate review and to promote the perception of fair sentencing.” “As part of this individualized assessment, the district court must address or consider all non-frivolous reasons presented for imposing a different sentence and explain why it has rejected those arguments.”

Heaggeans focuses on the brief statement the district court made prior to sentencing Heaggeans to argue that the court did not adequately explain its reasoning for the chosen sentence. However, “it is . . . well established that our review of a district court’s sentencing explanation is not limited to the court’s statements at the moment it imposes sentence.”

Here, the court explicitly considered the § 3553(a) factors over the course of the sentencing and gave an individualized assessment of Heaggeans by considering the specific circumstances regarding the instant conflict with law enforcement and Heaggeans’s history of violence towards law enforcement. The court also considered Heaggeans’s mental health and difficult life circumstances but found that these circumstances did not mitigate the violent nature of the offense and Heaggeans’s criminal history.

The court again considered Heaggeans’s mental health in recommending that Heaggeans receive mental health treatment while incarcerated and on supervised release, noting that Heaggeans had the capacity to become a good citizen. The district court thus adequately explained its chosen sentence and Heaggeans’s sentence is procedurally reasonable.

Affirmed.

Criminal; firearms smuggling

BOTTOM LINE: Where men convicted for their efforts to provide arms and ammunition to Anglophone fighters in Cameroon argued the evidence was insufficient to show they knew that the serial numbers on the firearms had been obliterated, this argument failed. The men worked in close proximity in a secret lab and the government presented the jury with some of the actual guns seized with the serial numbers obliterated and photographs of the remaining guns seized with serial numbers obliterated.

CASE: United States v. Nji, Case Nos. 23-4236, 23-4284, 23-4387 (filed Nov. 18, 2025) (Judges NIEMEYER, Gregory, Harris).

FACTS: In connection with their secret efforts to provide arms and ammunition to Anglophone fighters in Cameroon, Wilson Tita, Eric Nji and Wilson Fonguh were convicted on multiple counts.

LAW: The defendants argue mainly that the evidence was insufficient to show their mens rea for the § 922(k) offense — i.e., that they knew that the serial numbers on the firearms had been obliterated. The court disagrees.

First, the Peanut Project was a small, closely knit group dedicated to shipping firearms and ammunition to Anglophone fighters in Cameroon. And part of their mission was to conceal the source of firearms, especially because of a past incident in which the Cameroonian government was able to trace a firearm back to the United States based on
its serial number.

The grinding operations in the lab, while kept secret from the outside world, were open and visible to all members present, and the members, including the defendants, participated in lab work over a lengthy period, working in the lab up to three days each week. In these circumstances, a jury had circumstantial evidence that all members present in the lab were familiar with its mission and operations and knowingly participated in their fulfillment.

At trial, the government presented the testimony of two former Peanut Project members who knew the operations and worked with the defendants in particular. Finally, the government presented the jury with some of the actual guns seized with the serial numbers obliterated and photographs of the remaining guns seized with serial numbers obliterated.

The defendants also argue that the government failed to prove that the weapons in question were actually firearms, as that term is used in § 922(k). However the government brought many of the guns to court for the jury to see and presented photographs of all of them. In addition, law enforcement officers who found the weapons identified them specifically by manufacturer, make and model. And the whole point of the operation was to send firearms and ammunition.

The defendants contend next that the district court abused its discretion in excluding testimony from the defendants’ expert, who would have testified about conditions in Cameroon, and would have supported the defendants’ contention that the concealment of their activities was part of an effort to keep their friends and families in Cameroon safe, rather than reflecting knowledge that their activities were illegal.

The court allowed the defendants, through other testimony, to explain the conflict and their fear of the Cameroonian government and thereby provide direct evidence of their state of mind. And indeed, they did so. In these circumstances, the district court did not abuse its discretion in avoiding a distracting, collateral mini-trial about the nature and merits of the conflict in Cameroon.

The defendants also contend that the district court abused its discretion in making rulings that denied them the ability to introduce a pretrial statement made by a coconspirator, Tse Bangarie. The court disagrees.

The district court reasonably concluded that compelling Bangarie’s limited testimony on this issue could potentially expose him to additional adverse consequences. Nor did the district court abuse its discretion in declining to admit the government’s report of Bangarie’s pre-plea statement into evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 807.

The defendants contend that the district court erred by (1) instructing the jury under the Pinkerton standard for liability, (2) granting a willful blindness instruction and (3) providing the jury a legally insufficient definition of “knowingly” in the conspiracy instruction. Taken together, and also with the court’s aiding and abetting instruction, the defendants argue that the instructions “deprived [them] of a fair trial” by “reducing the standard of the government’s proof well below the constitutional requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” The court disagrees.

The defendants argue that the district court applied the wrong legal standard when evaluating relevant conduct and failed to make the “required particularized findings” necessary to support the enhancements’ application. The court disagrees.

Finally, the defendants contend that the district court committed reversible error by imposing two conditions of supervised release in the written judgments entered against them that differed from the articulation of those conditions made by the court orally during sentencing. The court disagrees.

Affirmed.

Criminal; sentencing enhancements

BOTTOM LINE: Where the defendant argued the district court erred when it allowed the government to make late arguments in support of two sentencing enhancements, this argument was rejected. The district court’s request for supplemental briefing constituted “good cause” for the government to then pursue sentencing enhancements. And the district court had an independent obligation to properly calculate the applicable guideline range.

CASE: United States v. Henderson, Case No. 23-4313 (filed Nov. 17, 2025) (Judges DIAZ, Wilkinson, Wynn).

FACTS: Michael Henderson pleaded guilty to possessing 500 grams or more of a mixture containing methamphetamine with the intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). A district court sentenced Henderson to 188 months in prison.

LAW: Henderson claims that the district court erred when it allowed the government to make late arguments in support of two sentencing enhancements. The court disagrees.

Parties must submit objections to the presentence report within 14 days of receipt. Even so, a district court “may, for good cause, allow a party to make a new objection at any time before sentence is imposed.” Here, the district court extended the 14-day cutoff. But that new deadline came and went without any objections from the government. So the question before this court is whether the district court’s request for supplemental briefing constituted “good cause” for the government to then pursue sentencing enhancements. The court concludes that it did.

Henderson argues otherwise because the court didn’t explicitly ask the parties to discuss sentencing enhancements in their supplemental briefs. But district courts have wide latitude to decide what constitutes good cause, and their findings can be made implicitly. Here, the district court asked for briefing on “(a) the implication of Jones, and (b) whether Mr. Henderson me[t] the remaining safety valve criteria.” Sentencing enhancements are naturally part of that discussion, because whether Henderson qualified for certain enhancements informed whether the safety valve applied.

The district court found Henderson ineligible for safety valve relief because he qualified for the leadership role enhancement. And while the court found otherwise when considering the firearm enhancement, it had to review the facts supporting the enhancement to make that decision. In short, because the court’s request for supplemental briefing fairly implicated the relevant enhancements, the request constituted an implicit finding of good cause for the government’s new arguments.

Regardless, district courts have an independent obligation to properly calculate the applicable guideline range. In doing so, they aren’t limited to the parties’ arguments or the recommendations in the presentence report. So the government’s failure to timely object to the presentence report didn’t relieve the district court of its independent duty to calculate Henderson’s proper guideline range, which includes consideration of applicable enhancements.

The district court independently assessed the relevant facts—once in its order on safety valve relief, and again at Henderson’s sentencing—before deciding the two enhancements should apply. This court has no reason to think that the court would have viewed the facts differently or failed to apply the enhancements in the absence of the government’s arguments. So any error in considering the objections was harmless.

Henderson also asserts that the district court erred by applying the enhancement for possession of a firearm because the record didn’t support it. Once again, the court disagrees.

The facts in the presentence report show that Henderson constructively possessed firearms. Henderson continued running his drug trafficking operation from jail over the phone. On one call, he instructed Bonnie Cagle to make sure his “brother” received two firearms when he arrived in town—a black gun to keep in his house and a silver one to carry. That evidence sufficed for the district court to find that Henderson exercised control over the weapons.

The district court also reasonably found that Henderson possessed the weapons in connection with his drug trafficking business. Henderson directed Cagle (who herself was involved in the drug scheme) to give his guns to his brother, who was coming into town to assist with the operation. And law enforcement recovered one of the firearms Henderson described from Cagle’s home, showing that the weapons were connected to drug activity.

Henderson claims that the district court incorrectly relied on disputed facts when it applied the firearm enhancement. But Henderson didn’t raise any objections to the facts supporting the firearm enhancement in his supplemental brief. And Henderson can’t show plain error because he hasn’t made any non-speculative argument that the district court would have issued a lesser sentence if it had reviewed his factual objections before ruling on the enhancement.

Affirmed.

Criminal; suppression

BOTTOM LINE: Where a man charged with concealing his criminal history to procure citizenship argued the district court should have suppressed his state guilty plea, because his counsel failed to advise him that pleading guilty could lead to immigration consequences, this argument was rejected.

CASE: United States v. Palmer, Case No. 23-4538 (filed Nov. 18, 2025) (Judges DIAZ, Wilkinson, Wynn).

FACTS: Gregory Palmer applied for naturalization in 2011. But in 2013, he pleaded guilty in state court to attempted statutory rape. He didn’t disclose the misconduct on his naturalization application. A federal jury found Palmer guilty of knowingly concealing his criminal history to procure United States citizenship.

LAW: Palmer first argues that the district court should have dismissed the indictment for unconstitutional preindictment delay. The grand jury indicted Palmer just within the 10-year statute of limitations for naturalization fraud. Palmer argues that the delay between the alleged fraud and the indictment prejudiced him because his mother, whom he asserts would have testified in his defense, passed away in the intervening years.

When the “claimed prejudice is the unavailability of [a] witness[],” the defendant must “identify the witness he would have called; demonstrate, with specificity the expected content of that witness’ testimony; establish to the court’s satisfaction that he has made serious attempts to locate the witness; and . . . show that the information the witness would have provided was not available from other sources.”

Palmer can’t meet his high burden. He offers only his own assertions about the substance of his mother’s testimony. When a defendant’s proffer is limited to his own contentions about what a witness “would have testified,” the substance of the “testimony remains highly speculative.” Although Palmer claims that he’s presented credible evidence to corroborate his assertions, the court finds none in the record.

But even crediting Palmer’s account, other sources offered the same information. Palmer’s trial turned on whether he understood question 15 on the naturalization application: The jury heard no shortage of evidence about Palmer’s cognitive challenges.
Palmer is right that neither a family witness nor a witness with personal knowledge of his childhood testified. But he has three siblings—and teachers, employers, friends and coworkers—who could have testified about Palmer’s family background, childhood and long-term language-processing challenges. That forms this court’s view that any prejudice Palmer suffered wasn’t substantial. At most, Palmer’s mother would have provided cumulative evidence on the point.

Palmer did present evidence about those challenges. But the jury also saw Palmer’s plea agreement, where he wrote that he read at an eleventh-grade level. And it heard that Palmer successfully completed challenging reading, writing and civics tests. The jury even heard that Palmer used to write letters and read western novels for fun.
Presented with a breadth of information about Palmer’s cognitive abilities, the jury found that he knowingly misrepresented his past criminal activity. The court can’t conclude on this record that Palmer’s mother’s testimony likely would have tipped the scales in his favor.

Palmer next argues the district court should have suppressed his state guilty plea because his counsel failed to advise him that pleading guilty could lead to immigration consequences. The court disagrees.

State convictions and guilty pleas are presumed to be valid. There’s only one exception to that strong presumption: when a person is deprived of his right to counsel. The Supreme Court has declined to extend that exception to ineffective assistance of counsel claims.

Palmer nevertheless asks this court to create a new exception—ineffective assistance of counsel claims based on counsel’s failure to advise a defendant of possible immigration consequences. The court finds no principled basis to distinguish these errors from other ineffective assistance of counsel claims.

Palmer argues the district court erred by excluding expert testimony related to—but not drawing conclusions about—his intent. The Supreme Court’s recent guidance from Diaz v. United States, 602 U.S. 526 (2024), issued after Palmer’s trial, teaches that Rule 704(b) only bars an expert’s conclusion that the defendant had or didn’t have a mental state or condition when it’s an element of the crime. So it doesn’t prohibit opinions that are merely related to the defendant’s mental state, even if they bump up to the line.

Construing Rule 704(b) narrowly, the court finds that it didn’t justify excluding her grade-level opinions. But the error was harmless. Palmer’s trial was about whether he understood question 15. Palmer fails to distinguish the excluded testimony from the plethora of other evidence the jury heard about his language-processing challenges.

Affirmed.

Criminal; excessive force

BOTTOM LINE: Where a police officer was outnumbered, had probable cause to believe the defendant was brazenly committing a serious drug offense in public and drew his firearm for less than 30 seconds, the defendant’s excessive force claim was rejected.

CASE: United States v. Coe, Case No. 24-4111 (filed Nov. 12, 2025) (Judges Wilkinson, Thacker, HEYTENS).

FACTS: While patrolling alone at night, Officer Dquan Walker saw Davonte J. Coe sitting in the driver’s seat of a car parked just outside the entrance to a convenience store known for “drug activity … inside and outside of the store.” Coe was holding plastic baggies that appeared to contain cocaine. There were other people on the scene, including one in the front passenger seat of Coe’s car.

Walker drew his firearm and opened the driver’s side door. As Coe started getting
out, Walker grabbed Coe and pinned him to the car. Walker holstered his firearm and
drew his taser. Coe began to struggle and threw the baggies in front of the car. As Coe and Walker struggled, Walker saw a firearm in Coe’s waistband.

Coe was charged with violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). He filed two relevant pretrial
motions: (1) to dismiss the indictment because § 922(g)(1) violates the Second
Amendment and (2) to suppress the firearm because Walker used constitutionally
excessive force. The district court denied those motions, and Coe entered a conditional
guilty plea. Coe now appeals the denials of those motions.

The district court correctly denied Coe’s motion to dismiss the indictment. Coe does
not assert that the conviction that prohibits him from possessing firearms has been
“pardoned or [that] the law defining the crime of conviction [has been] found
unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful.” His Second Amendment challenge thus fails.

The centerpiece of Coe’s argument before this court is that Walker violated the
Fourth Amendment by “pointing his firearm, with no safety, with his finger on the trigger, into [ ] Coe’s side and back as [Walker] held [Coe] against the car with his left elbow.” But the district court did not find that Walker pointed his firearm into Coe’s side or back or that Walker had his finger on the trigger. (In fact, the latter issue was hotly contested at the suppression hearing.)

As this court has said many times, it reviews a district court’s factual findings for
clear error and must view the record on appeal in the light most favorable to the side that prevailed below. Coe’s briefs do not assert—much less establish—that the district court committed clear error by not finding Walker had his finger on the trigger or pointed his firearm into Coe’s side or back, and this court cannot make such factual findings in the first instance.

Based on the findings the district court did make, Walker’s conduct did not violate
the Fourth Amendment. Walker was outnumbered, had probable cause to believe Coe was brazenly committing a serious drug offense in public and drew his firearm for less than 30 seconds. “[J]udged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight,” it was not constitutionally unreasonable for Walker to briefly draw his firearm under the circumstances presented here.

Affirmed.

Employment; COVID-19 religious discrimination

BOTTOM LINE: Where two employees pleaded facts making it plausible that their beliefs were an essential part of a religious faith and they connected those beliefs to their refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, the district court erred in dismissing their Title VII claims.

CASE: Finn v. Humane Society of the United States, Case No. 24-1416 (filed Nov. 20, 2025) (Judges Diaz, WYNN, Harris).

FACTS: Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Humane Society of the United States (like many employers) instituted a company-wide vaccine mandate, requiring their employees to get vaccinated or risk termination. Two of the Society’s remote employees, Katherine Muldoon and Jennifer Finn, requested religious exemptions from the mandate. But the Society denied both requests and eventually fired them.

Muldoon and Finn sued, alleging religious discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. They also brought claims for disability discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA. The district court granted the Society’s motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim.

LAW: Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an employer can’t “discharge any individual, or otherwise … discriminate against any individual … because of such individual’s … religion.” But to claim such protection, a plaintiff must show her professed belief is (1) sincerely held and (2) religious in nature. The parties dispute only the second prong.

This court recently clarified the requirements to state a Title VII religious discrimination claim in the vaccine mandate context in Barnett v. Inova Health Care Servs., 125 F.4th 465 (4th Cir. 2025). It articulated two requirements for this “religious” prong at the pleading stage in vaccine mandate cases: (1) a person’s beliefs must be an “essential part of a religious faith” and (2) such beliefs must be “plausibly connected with her refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Muldoon asserts that she opposes the use of aborted fetal cell lines to produce the COVID-19 vaccine because of her “Christian upbringing.” And Finn explains that she would “betray[]” her “conscience and faith” if she complied with the mandate, citing Catholic teachings. At the pleading stage, these allegations are enough to show that Muldoon and Finn’s beliefs are each “an essential part of a religious faith that must be given great weight.”

Muldoon expressly links her refusal to “inject a product containing fetal cells or derived from testing involving fetal cells” to her “religious beliefs founded in [her] Christian upbringing that fetuses are individuals and did not consent to the use of their bodies in medical testing or production.” That connection satisfies the second requirement.

Finn connects her belief that her “heart, conscience and faith in God and Jesus prevent [her] from complying with the mandate” to Catholic teachings on the importance of one’s conscience. Because Muldoon and Finn plausibly allege that their beliefs are an essential part of a religious faith and they connect those beliefs to their refusal to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, the district court erred in dismissing their Title VII claims.

Under the ADA, an employer can’t “make inquiries of an employee as to whether such employee is an individual with a disability or as to the nature or severity of the disability, unless such examination or inquiry is shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity.” Muldoon and Finn say that the Society had no valid business reason to inquire into their vaccination status, especially because they were remote employees. But that argument is fatally flawed: an employer’s inquiry into an employee’s vaccination status isn’t a disability-related inquiry.

Muldoon and Finn also allege that the Society regarded them as disabled because they were unvaccinated and then fired them for that reason. But, once again, being unvaccinated isn’t a physical or mental impairment. It therefore can’t support a “regarded as” claim.

Affirmed in part, vacated in part and remanded.

Habeas Corpus; standing

BOTTOM LINE: Where the district court denied the habeas petition on two independent grounds, and this court granted a certificate of appealability only on one issue, the appeal was dismissed for lack of standing. Even if the court were to reverse on the one issue, that would not result in any relief for the petitioner.

CASE: United States v. Robinson, Case No. 22-7200 (filed Nov. 20, 2025) (Judges Thacker, QUATTLEBAUM, Floyd).

FACTS: Carlos Robinson sought habeas relief from his drug and gun convictions under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The district court denied relief for two alternative reasons. It first found Robinson’s motion was second or successive without the requisite appellate court pre-approval. Because of that, the court held it lacked “jurisdiction.”

The district court then explained that, even if the motion was not impermissibly successive, it was still untimely. And the district court held that equitable tolling did not apply based on the absence of justification for untimeliness and the fact that Robinson’s motion was so lacking on the merits that it could not be salvaged by equitable tolling.

This court granted a certificate of appealability on a single issue—“[w]hether an amended criminal judgment entered after a First Step Act sentence reduction qualifies as a ‘new judgment’ for purposes of the [Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996].”

LAW: Standing clarifies which cases or controversies “are appropriately resolved through the judicial process,” by requiring a plaintiff “show (i) that he suffered an injury in fact that is concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; (ii) that the injury was likely caused by the defendant; and (iii) that the injury would likely be redressed by judicial relief.”

Here, it is the third standing requirement, redressability, that prevents this court from considering the merits of Robinson’s appeal. This is so because of the district court’s alternative holdings as to its dismissal of Robinson’s § 2255 motion and this court’s denial of Robinson’s motion to expand the certificate of appealability.

The cumulative effect of those events rendered Robinson’s appeal moot because this court can no longer afford him any meaningful relief. Any redress for Robinson is not just speculative, but impossible. Because even the most favorable ruling for Robinson on whether a First Step Act reduction results in a new judgment changes nothing with respect to the district court’s ruling on untimeliness.

Robinson argues in his supplemental briefing that, because the district court first dismissed his motion for lack of “jurisdiction,” the alternative holding on untimeliness is null and void. According to Robinson, because courts cannot “assume subject-matter jurisdiction to reach the merits of a case,” everything the district court said after it found it lacked jurisdiction was improper. If the untimeliness ruling was improper, a favorable ruling from this court would thus mean Robinson could argue again below on equitable tolling and the merits of his motion.

The court disagrees. True, courts cannot assume jurisdiction to decide the merits of a case. And true, the district court said that it lacked jurisdiction over Robinson’s motion because it was impermissibly successive. But for a rule to be truly jurisdictional it must “really concern[] a limitation on the court’s capacity to decide as opposed to a threshold requirement that a party ha[s] to satisfy in order to go forward.” That only happens when “Congress ‘clearly states’ that the provision has jurisdictional consequences.”

Here §§ 2255(h) and 2244(b)(3) do not contain language that shows compliance is jurisdictional in nature here as opposed to claims processing. Therefore, the district court did not assume hypothetical jurisdiction in order to issue the alternative timeliness ruling. And because that ruling is valid regardless of how we answer Robinson’s question on appeal, Robinson’s claim is not redressable by this court.

Appeal dismissed.

Habeas Corpus; ineffective assistance

BOTTOM LINE: Where the defendant’s court-appointed attorney failed to present compelling mitigating evidence and failed to object to the improper use of the defendant’s expunged juvenile criminal record against him, and the defendant suffered resulting prejudice, his habeas petition was granted.

CASE: Coleman v. Dotson, Case No. 20-7083 (filed Nov. 21, 2025) (Judges KING, Gregory) (Judge RUSHING dissents).

FACTS: Christopher Coleman pleaded guilty to two counts of malicious wounding and additional state charges for offenses committed in separate incidents on the same day in March 2011. Coleman has sought plenary resentencing by way of state and federal petitions for habeas corpus relief, asserting a Sixth Amendment ineffective assistance of counsel claim premised on several sentencing-related blunders by his court-appointed lawyer.

The lawyer’s alleged missteps involve, among other things, the failure to present compelling mitigating evidence — including evidence substantiating Coleman’s valorous military service, significant combat injuries and ensuing struggles with his mental health, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD — as well as the failure to object to the improper use of Coleman’s expunged juvenile criminal record against him.

The presiding judge rejected Coleman’s arguments in the state habeas corpus proceedings in two decisions. Coleman’s appeal from that first decision was dismissed as untimely, while the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled the second decision contained no reversible error. The federal district court dismissed Coleman’s § 2254 petition for being untimely as to the first order and for being non-meritorious as to the second order.

LAW: This opinion addresses the second order issued by the state court, because there is no timeliness issue with respect to that order, and because it constitutes the “last reasoned decision” of the state courts, having been summarily affirmed on its merits by the Supreme Court of Virginia. In any event, the lack of a timely challenge to the first order is “of no import,” in that Coleman’s timely challenge to the second order involves the same consolidated sentencing proceedings, the same combined sentence and the same Sixth Amendment ineffective assistance of counsel claim.

Owing to the deference accorded to state decisions under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1) and the deference accorded to counsel under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), the federal courts are often obliged to engage in a “doubly deferential” review of the deficient performance issue with respect to ineffective assistance claims brought pursuant to § 2254.

Here, however, the second order did not decide the deficient performance issue, and thus this court has no ruling to defer to and must perform a de novo analysis. Moreover, it is undisputed that Coleman’s counsel failed without justification to conduct a thorough mitigation investigation, thereby rebutting the presumption of sound trial strategy and other reasonable professional assistance.

The court finds that the performance of Coleman’s lawyer was deficient, in that he “clearly” failed to satisfy his “obligation to conduct a thorough investigation of [Coleman’s] background” and that “[t]he decision not to investigate did not reflect reasonable professional judgment.”

Turning to the prejudice prong, rather than considering whether “there is a reasonable probability [Coleman] would have received a different sentence,” the state court assessed whether Coleman’s sentence “would have been different” and thereby employed a standard similar to the forbidden preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. Consequently, the decision was plainly “contrary to” Strickland within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1).

Furthermore, the decision disregarded the totality-of-the-evidence standard and failed to “consider ‘the totality of the available mitigation evidence — both that adduced at trial, and the evidence adduced in the habeas proceeding’ — and ‘reweigh it against the evidence in aggravation.’” Instead, it engaged in an analysis that unreasonably broke from Strickland by considering less than the totality of the evidence, and one that unreasonably discounted evidence favorable to [Coleman] by unduly minimizing its import and evaluating it piecemeal.”

This court is thus left to conduct a de novo analysis of the prejudice issue. Properly applying the reasonable probability and totality-of-the-evidence standards, the court concludes that Coleman has demonstrated prejudice and thus proven his Sixth Amendment ineffective assistance of counsel claim and established his entitlement to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 relief.

Reversed and remanded.

DISSENT: The state habeas court did not apply an incorrect legal standard and we are not free to evaluate Coleman’s Sixth Amendment challenge de novo. The majority then multiplies its error by vacating not only Coleman’s state sentence on the sole conviction before us in this appeal but also vacating his state sentences on other convictions Congress has forbidden us to review. Because the majority disregards the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 at every turn, I respectfully dissent.

Immigration; torture petition

BOTTOM LINE: Where the immigration judge and Board of Immigration Appeals ignored evidence showing that the Honduran government was unable or unwilling to protect the petitioner, incorrectly placed the burden on him to show otherwise and failed to meaningfully engage with evidence that the Honduran government is corrupt, colludes with gangs and turns a blind eye to torture, the Board of Immigration Appeals’ denial of his application for withholding of removal and protection pursuant to the Convention Against Torture was vacated.

CASE: Marquez v. Bondi, Case No. 24-1842 (filed Nov. 19, 2025) (Judges Gregory, THACKER) (Judge WILKINSON dissents).

FACTS: Carlos Ramos Marquez seeks review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ denial of his application for withholding of removal and protection pursuant to the Convention Against Torture, or CAT.

LAW: To qualify for withholding of removal, a noncitizen must demonstrate a clear probability that, if removed to a particular country, his “life or freedom would be threatened in that country because of [his] race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

The immigration judge, or IJ, determined that petitioner failed to demonstrate that the Honduran government was unable or unwilling to protect him because (1) petitioner failed to report his past encounters with MS-13 to police, (2) police responded to the scenes of his brothers’ murders and (3) the state of exception had resulted in “some arrests and forced the gangs to keep a lower profile.” The Board of Immigration Appeals, or BIA, discerned no clear error in that analysis.

Neither the IJ nor the BIA considered petitioner’s testimony that he did not report his gang encounters because the government is corrupt, and the gangs find out when someone reports them. This credible testimony was supported by the country condition evidence petitioner submitted which indicated that “[i]t is widely recognized that the Honduran government – including the police, military, and judicial system – is crippled by severe corruption. Lawlessness and impunity is widespread.”

The IJ and the BIA ignored that evidence and failed to offer “specific, cogent reasons” for doing so. Instead, the agency focused only on the fact that the police responded to the murders of petitioner’s brothers. But that says nothing about whether the police would be able to control MS-13 before they murder petitioner. They certainly were unable to control MS-13 before they murdered both of petitioner’s brothers. This court therefore vacates the BIA’s determination that petitioner failed to demonstrate past persecution by an entity the Honduran government was unable or unwilling to control.

What is more, there is no requirement that an applicant for withholding of removal have reported his past harm to police, so long as the applicant demonstrates that “doing so (1) would have been futile or (2) have subjected [him] to further abuse.” The record evidence demonstrated both of those.

The BIA also denied petitioner’s application for withholding of removal because it concluded that he had not demonstrated past persecution by an actor Honduras was unable or unwilling to control. The court agrees with petitioner that the BIA erred in placing the burden on him.

To receive protection pursuant to the CAT, an applicant must “establish that it is more likely than not that he or she would be tortured if removed to the proposed country of removal.” Petitioner argues that he submitted numerous country condition reports that demonstrate that the Honduran government is corrupt, colludes with gangs and turns a blind eye to torture. But, he asserts that the agency failed to meaningfully engage with that evidence. The court agrees.

The agency “selectively consider[ed] evidence, ignoring that evidence that corroborates [petitioner’s] claims and calls into question the conclusion the judge [was] attempting to reach.” Thus, the agency abused its discretion in denying petitioner’s application for CAT relief, and its decision is vacated.

Petition for review granted; vacated and remanded.

DISSENT: I would deny the petition for review. To have even a decent chance at success, investigations of violent crimes require cooperation between law enforcement, victims and third-party eyewitnesses. Yet Carlos Ramos Marquez never once notified Honduran officials about the harm he purportedly suffered, even though they had always looked into alleged crimes that his relatives reported. We can thus hardly fault the Honduran police for coming up short.

In holding otherwise, my able colleagues in the majority disregard the inherently collaborative nature of criminal investigations and dilute the deference that we, by statute, owe the judges below.

Prisons; deliberate indifference

BOTTOM LINE: Where a reasonable juror could find that defendants were deliberately indifferent to a former inmate who suffered serious injuries after he was not provided blood clotting medication, the district court erred when it granted the defendants’ motions for summary judgment.

CASE: Swink v. Southern Health Partners Inc., Case No. 21-2183 (filed Nov. 20, 2025) (Judges GREGORY, Benjamin) (Judge RICHARDSON concurs in part and dissents in part).

FACTS: David Ray Gunter sued multiple defendants over injuries that allegedly resulted from the care he received during his detainment at Davie County Detention Center, or DCDC, and Stokes County Detention Center, or SCDC. The district court denied Gunter’s motion to compel medical appellees to produce their expert witness Dr. Julie Sease for deposition, which Gunter filed 11 days after the close of discovery. The district court ultimately granted all defendants’ motions for summary judgment.

LAW: The district court erred in finding Gunter’s evidence did not “create a genuine dispute of material fact” that medical appellees “were deliberately indifferent to [Gunter’s] medical needs.” Gunter’s heart condition qualifies as objectively serious. And a reasonable jury could find that the available medical information put medical appellees on sufficient notice that depriving Gunter of Coumadin would incite acute health issues. That Gunter subsequently experienced blood clots satisfies the final prong of the test, which requires the plaintiff be harmed by the defendant’s action or inaction.

Gunter has brought a Monell claim against Davie and Stokes Counties, arguing that they contracted out their authority and obligation to provide adequate medical care to inmates at their jails to Southern Health Partners Inc., or SHP, the contracted medical care provider for DCDC, whose decisions, a reasonable jury could find, resulted in his injuries. The court agrees.

Evidence in the record suggests that SHP had a custom and practice of taking days to get inmates their medication, and of not having a medical professional available to treat inmates during weekends. A reasonable jury could find that these decisions were “the ‘moving force’” behind Gunter not receiving adequate medical care and suffering serious injuries.

The district court similarly erred when it dismissed Gunter’s medical malpractice claim against SHP. Providing medical care to those incarcerated in county jails is a nondelegable duty of the county, and thus, any independent contractor hired to perform that duty is an agent of the state as a matter of law. Hence, SHP is an agent of the state as a matter of law. Therefore, Gunter has a medical malpractice claim against SHP.

Turning to Gunter’s medical malpractice claim against Fran Jackson, a nurse, and Manuel Maldonado, a licensed physician’s assistant and independent contractor for SHP who oversaw medical care at DCDC and SCDC, the parties dispute whether the injuries suffered by the plaintiff were proximately caused by such breach. Gunter put forth the following pieces of evidence to demonstrate proximate causation: evidence related to Gunter’s access to medication prior to incarceration, the testimony of Dr. Yoder and the testimony of Dr. Laber.

The district court found these pieces of evidence put forth by Gunter were inadmissible and ultimately concluded that Gunter failed to present a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether his medical treatment in jail proximately caused his blood clots. The court disagrees.

First, the district court improperly weighed or resolved evidence related to Gunter’s access to medication prior to his incarceration. Such evidence should not have been excluded, and it was an abuse of discretion for the district court to conclude otherwise. Second, the district court abused its discretion in finding Dr. Yoder failed to testify with a reasonable degree of medical certainty. The district court likewise abused its discretion in finding Dr. Laber failed to testify with a reasonable degree of medical certainty.

The district court abused its discretion in striking Dr. Laber’s post-deposition declaration. While the district court found that “Dr. Laber’s commentary about there being an underdosing of medication [wa]s new testimony that expressly contradict[ed] his findings about proximate cause being a lack of anticoagulation generally[,]” this is incorrect. However the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Gunter’s motion to compel medical appellees to produce Dr. Julie Sease for deposition.

Affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded.

CONCUR/DISSENT: The district court never assessed Gunter’s § 1983 claim under the proper legal standard. And the proximate cause of Gunter’s blood clots is a matter of genuine dispute once all admissible medical-expert testimony is considered.

I would thus vacate and remand the grant of summary judgment on the § 1983 claim as to Jackson and Maldonado, reverse the grant of summary judgment on the medical-malpractice claim as to Jackson and Maldonado and affirm all other aspects of the district court’s decisions.

Tort; trade secrets

BOTTOM LINE: Where the district court dismissed a trade secret claim because it concluded that a company did not plausibly allege it took reasonable measures to protect the secrecy of the proprietary software, it erred. The company plausibly alleged that the proprietary software was covered by the confidentiality provision, which was a reasonable measure intended to keep it secret.

CASE: Samuel Sherbrooke Corporate Ltd. v. Mayer, Case No. 24-2173 (filed Nov. 18, 2025) (Judges Agee, THACKER, Richardson).

FACTS: Samuel Sherbrooke Corporation and Samuel Goldner sued Gabriel Mayer, Beau Walker and Joe Queen for violating the Defend Trade Secrets Act, or DTSA, as well as various state law claims related to corporate malfeasance. After a hearing, the district court entered a written order granting appellees’ motion for judgment on the pleadings as to the DTSA claim and declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over all of the remaining state law claims.

LAW: To state a viable DTSA claim, a plaintiff must plausibly allege that (1) it owns a trade secret; (2) the trade secret was misappropriated and (3) the trade secret implicates interstate or foreign commerce. Pursuant to the DTSA, information is a trade secret if (1) its owner “has taken reasonable measures to keep [it] secret” and (2) it “derives independent economic value” from its secrecy.

The district court determined that appellants failed to plausibly allege they took reasonable measures to protect the secrecy of the proprietary software. On appeal, appellants argue they did sufficiently plead the secrecy element because they pled that appellees were required to sign the employment contract which included the confidentiality agreement and invention provision. And they argue that they sufficiently connected those provisions to the proprietary software. The court agrees.

The complaint makes clear that the “Proprietary Software is—and always has been—the confidential property of Sherbrooke.” It also alleges that the employment contract specified that employees “shall not, at any time hereafter, disclose Confidential Information.”

And it alleges that the Invention Provision provided, “any invention, idea, design, process, system, procedure, improvement, development or discovery (an ‘Invention’) conceived, created, made or developed by Employee” through their employment “shall become the sole and exclusive property of [Sherbrooke].” Taking these allegations as true, the complaint sufficiently alleges that the Proprietary Software, which was “confidential property,” was treated as confidential information under the employment contract.

Appellees argue that the complaint fails to make this connection because the facts pled do not allow the court to “know[] whether, for example, the ‘Proprietary Software’ uses open source code which is already publicly available (and, thus, could not be confidential as a matter of law). As such, it is impossible to know if the alleged confidentiality provision would apply (or whether it would even be enforceable).”

But this argument requires too much. Appellants did not need to prove anything. They only needed to plausibly allege that the Proprietary Software was covered by the confidentiality provision, which was a reasonable measure intended to keep it secret. Appellants did so here.

Even still, appellees argue that the existence of a confidentiality provision alone is not sufficient as a matter of law to demonstrate reasonable efforts to maintain secrecy. At this stage of the proceedings, the court disagrees, and the Ninth Circuit has concluded similarly. Trade secrets take many forms and what may constitute “reasonable measures” must be considered in light of the nature of the trade secret and the context in which it exists.

At the pleading stage, then, it is sufficient that appellants allege they protected the Proprietary Software by requiring employees to sign the confidentiality agreement and Invention Provision contained in the employment contract.

The DTSA defines misappropriation as the “disclosure or use of a trade secret of another” without consent by a person who, at the time of the use, “knew or had reason to know that the knowledge of the trade secret was . . . acquired under circumstances giving rise to a duty to maintain the secrecy of the trade secret.”

The only question is whether the complaint plausibly alleges that appellees disclosed or used the trade secret. Appellees argue it does not because, in their view, the complaint only includes a single conclusory allegation that they “[are] actively using” the Proprietary Software to operate their new competing insurance company. Not so.

The complaint explains that Walker created the Proprietary Software and Queen and Mayer were shareholders, directors and officers of Sherbrooke, such that they knew about the Proprietary Software. The complaint alleges that all three appellees created a competing business and used the Proprietary Software to assist that competing business, rather than Sherbrooke. In the context of this alleged Propriety Software, these allegations are sufficient to state a claim for misappropriation.

Reversed and remanded.