US v. Walker:
Walker was originally charged with three counts of distributing heroin, two
counts of distributing fentanyl, and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
The parties negotiated a plea agreement to allow Walker to plead guilty to a
single-count information of possession with intent to distribute heroin. The
district court accepted the guilty plea, but delayed accepting the plea
agreement pending the completion of the PSR. When sentencing began, with Walker
facing a Guideline range of 21 to 27 months, the district court announced it
was rejecting the plea agreement. It did so based on Walker’s prior criminal
history (including prior lenient punishments), as well as concerns about the
ongoing opioid crisis in West Virginia, the lack of jury trials, and the
disregard for the charges returned by the grand jury. Walker withdrew his
guilty plea.
The Government returned a superseding
indictment charging Walker with two counts of distributing heroin, one count of
distributing fentanyl, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Walker
pleaded guilty, without a plea agreement, to the drug counts and went to trial
on the gun charge. During jury selection the district court overruled Walker’s Batson objection when the Government
struck the only African-American member of the jury venire. Walker was
convicted at trial and was eventually sentenced to 120 months in prison, based
partly on a finding that the gun at issue had been stolen.
On appeal the Fourth Circuit affirmed
Walker’s convictions and sentence. First, the court rejected Walker’s argument
that the district court abused its discretion by rejecting his initial plea
agreement based on “a vague policy that generally disfavors plea agreements”
that “interferes with the prerogatives of prosecutors and defense lawyers,” and
was based on “empirical grounds” that were “not factually sound.” Instead, the
court concluded that the district court “centered its analysis on whether the
particular plea . . . was too lenient and on whether it served the public
interest,” which was squarely within the district court’s purview. The court
did not dig into any of the policy bases expounded upon by the district court.
Second, the court concluded that there had been no Batson error because Walker failed to rebut the Government’s
non-race-based grounds for dismissing the juror in question. Finally, the court
held that the district court’s reliance on an NCIC report to conclude that the
gun at issue was stolen was not error, at least where Walker could not show
that the information in the report was inaccurate.
