A federal appeals court has denied qualified immunity for a police officer who shot and killed a citizen’s dog when the dog allegedly posed no threat. The Jan. 22 decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revives a ...

Tagged with: 4th Circuit

A federal prosecutor and a recently-appointed federal judge from South Carolina were confirmed by the U.S. Senate Aug. 16 to fill vacancies in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. U.S. District Court Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum was confirmed by ...

Tagged with: 4th Circuit

A serial killer on North Carolina’s death row had no constitutional right under Simmons v. South Carolina to inform the sentencing jury that because he was already ineligible for parole, he did not pose a continuing danger to society, the ...

Tagged with: 4th Circuit Death Penalty murder Simmons

  A federal inmate seeking habeas corpus relief now will have his petition considered on its merits. The en banc 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 2011 decision, finding a retroactive change in the law rendered the man’s ...

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The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated in a recent decision that it was time to turn common practice into precedence for cases in which district courts have dismissed claims for failure to plead sufficient facts, finding unanimously on ...

Tagged with: 4th Circuit

BALTIMORE — A lawyer’s premature disclosure of her client’s sealed whistleblower lawsuit does not necessarily doom the litigation, a U.S. appeals court ruled Monday in reviving a construction worker’s claim that a Maryland company violated the federal False Claims Act ...

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The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated and remanded the sentence of a member of a Maryland-based prison gang charged with multiple counts of murder and racketeering, but the panel’s reasoning in John Adams’ case is unknown because ...

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CHARLOTTE — A federal appeals court is hearing arguments in a case challenging a new North Carolina voting law that critics say will suppress minority voter turnout in November. The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set Thursday ...

Tagged with: 4th Circuit NAACP

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A federal appeals court says there was no error in a North Carolina death row inmate’s first-degree murder conviction. Elrico Darnell Fowler was sentenced to death for killing Bobby Richmond, an employee of a Howard Johnson’s ...

Tagged with: 4th Circuit death sentence

Courts: U.S. Court of Appeals 4th Circuit; North Carolina Court of Appeals; and  North Carolina Supreme Court State v. Dahlquist (Lawyers Weekly No. 13-07-1187, 12 pp.) Dec. 3, 2013 Holding: The court held that when considering the totality of the circumstances – including the ...

Tagged with: 4th Circuit North Carolina Court of Appeals North Carolina Supreme Court Traffic Law