Case Summaries: Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (July 2025)

This post summarizes published criminal law and related cases released by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals during July of 2025. Cases of potential interest to state practitioners are summarized monthly. Previous summaries of Fourth Circuit cases are available here. Petitioner met the standard for a claim of actual innocence and was entitled to merits adjudication of his habeas claims Wolfe v. Dotson, 144 F.4th 218 (July 7, 2025) (“Wolfe IV”). In 2001, Owen Barber murdered a local marijuana supplier in Bristow, Virginia. He ultimately confessed to the killing, accepted a plea to non-capital murder, and was sentenced to 60 years in Virginia state court. The state later indicted the petitioner, a friend of Barber’s, for capital murder, on the theory that he hired Barber to commit the killing. Barber was the main witness for the state at the petitioner’s trial and the only witness who testified to the petitioner’s involvement in the crime. The petitioner was convicted and sentenced to death. The conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal and in state post-conviction. The petitioner sought federal habeas relief and a stay of execution in the Eastern District of Virginia in 2005. His counsel for the habeas proceeding produced an affidavit from Barber recanting his testimony against the petitioner at the trial and admitting that he was solely responsible for the killing. Barber’s affidavit also revealed that police threatened him with the death penalty unless he identified and testified against the petitioner and that the story of the petitioner’s involvement [...]