Case Summaries: Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (August 2021)

This post summarizes published criminal and related decisions from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals released during August 2021 that may be of interest to state practitioners. Previous Fourth Circuit summaries are available on the SOG website here. Summaries are also emailed to subscribers of the SOG criminal law listserv. (1) Automobile exception justified initial search of car and search of car trunk two weeks later; (2) No abuse of discretion to allow codefendant’s testimony despite an imputed conflict of interest between the codefendant’s attorney and defendant’s prior state counsel; (3) Any error in disclosure of juvenile delinquency history worksheets in lieu of the complete juvenile delinquency files was harmless U.S. v. Caldwell, 7 F.4th 191 (Aug. 3, 2021). (1) In this case from the Western District of North Carolina, the defendant was convicted of bank robbery and a firearm offense. The defendant was apprehended hiding in bushes with a bag of money, including a GPS tracker, from the bank. Officers then located a car nearby, finding a gun in plain view, another GPS tracker, a ski mask, currency bands, and other items connected with the robbery. Officer obtained a warrant and searched the interior of the car but could not open the trunk due a dead car battery. The vehicle was impounded, and the trunk searched two weeks later, leading to the discovery of another gun and other evidence. The defendant moved to suppress, arguing that the search warrant was invalid and that the inventory search of the trunk was [...]