United States v. Hawkins , 110 F. App'x 302 ( 2004 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 04-4094
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
versus
BARBARA HAWKINS,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Greenbelt. Alexander Williams, Jr., District Judge.
(CR-03-48)
Submitted: September 1, 2004 Decided: September 17, 2004
Before NIEMEYER, LUTTIG, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Christopher M. Davis, Mary E. Davis, DAVIS & DAVIS, Washington,
D.C., for Appellant. Thomas M. DiBiagio, United States Attorney,
Stuart A. Berman, Assistant United States Attorney, Greenbelt,
Maryland, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
See Local Rule 36(c).
PER CURIAM:
Barbara Hawkins appeals her jury convictions and twenty-
four month sentence for making false statements at trial and
obstruction of justice, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1503 and 1623
(2000). Hawkins was convicted of committing perjury in two
criminal trials in which she testified for the defendant, Ahmad
Perry, who is her son.
Hawkins raises three claims on appeal. First, she claims
the district court abused its discretion in refusing to permit
certain lines of questioning to her treating physician and co-
worker. Next, she maintains that the court erred in denying her
motion for acquittal pursuant to Fed. R. Crim. P. 29 at the close
of the Government’s case-in-chief. Lastly, she argues the court
abused its discretion at sentencing in declining to authorize funds
for defense counsel to retain a mental health expert pursuant to 18
U.S.C. § 3006A(e)(1) (2000) and in denying her motion for a
downward departure. For the following reasons, we affirm Hawkins’s
convictions and sentence.
We find that the court did not abuse its discretion in
refusing to permit Hawkins’s treating physician and her co-worker
to present lay testimony as to Hawkins’s emotional state. In
addition, we find that substantial evidence supported Hawkins’s
jury convictions. See Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 80
(1942); United States v. Littleton, 76 F.3d 614, 618 (4th Cir.
- 2 -
1996). We therefore find that the district court did not err in
denying Hawkins’s Rule 29 motion for acquittal. See Glasser, 315
U.S. at 80; United States v. Brewer, 1 F.3d 1430, 1437 (4th Cir.
1993). Finally, we conclude that the court did not abuse its
discretion in declining to authorize funds for defense counsel to
retain a mental health expert as unnecessary under 18 U.S.C. §
3006A(e)(1) (2000) and in denying her motion for a downward
departure based primarily on diminished capacity.
Accordingly, we affirm Hawkins’s convictions and
sentence. We also grant Hawkins’s motion for leave to file a
supplemental brief asserting that Blakely v. Washington, __ U.S.
__, 124 S. Ct. 2531 (2004), invalidates her sentence imposed under
the federal sentencing guidelines. On August 2, 2004, we entered
an order in United States v. Hammoud, No. 03-4253, 2004 WL 17030309(4th Cir. Aug. 2, 2004) (order), petition for cert. filed, ___
U.S.L.W. ___ (U.S. Aug. 6, 2004) (No. 04-193), concluding that
Blakely did not affect the validity of a sentence imposed under the
federal sentencing guidelines. Thus, after reviewing the
defendant’s supplemental brief, we find no plain error under
Blakely occurred in imposing Hawkins’s sentence. We dispense with
oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are
adequately presented in the materials before the court and argument
would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
- 3 -