US v. Hunt: Hunt and several codefendants were part of the “36th Street Bang Squad” in Virginia. They were charged with numerous counts related to drug trafficking, associated violence, and the use of firearms in connection to both. After a five-week trial, during which “the Government marshalled a mountain of evidence to support these charges,” the defendants were convicted “on most of the counts alleged in the indictment.” The defendants received sentences of between 180 months and life in prison.
On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the defendants’ convictions and sentence, rejecting numerous arguments. Of particular interest, the court provided additional analysis of the status of attempt offenses as “crimes of violence” after the Supreme Court’s decision in Taylor. As it did recently in US v. Lassiter, the court held that attempting to commit an offense that requires the actual use of force if completed is a crime of violence. The court also rejected the argument that three of the Government’s expert witnesses should have been excluded because their field of expertise – ballistics – is “categorically unreliable,” agreeing with the district court that such concerns went to the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility.
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