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Uninvited Guest Supports Reckless Endangerment Enhancement

By Jonathan Byrne

US v. Carter: Carter was spotted engaging in what cops suspected was a drug deal. The followed him to a nearby convenience store and tried to apprehend him. Carter slipped their grasp and ran away, tossing aside a baggie of crack along the way. A 911 call alerted officers that Carter had run into a home, to which the officers responded. The person who lived their was waiting for them outside. The officers went inside and found Carter, who was arrested without incident. At sentencing, after a conviction for possession of crack with intent to distribute, the district court enhanced Carter's offense level for reckless endangerment, on the basis of his flight into someone's home.On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the enhancement. First, the court concluded that the district court did not clearly err in deciding that the apartment into which Carter fled was occupied when he did so, based on second-hand hearsay testimony from an officer involved in the case, dismissing a brief handwritten statement of the apartment dweller as "illegible...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Circuit Blog on April 02, 2010 (boomark / email).