Federal Criminal Appeals in the Fourth Circuit

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

When a federal judge in Columbia, Charlotte, Baltimore, Alexandria, or Charleston enters judgment, the case’s next chapter belongs to Richmond. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reviews every federal criminal conviction from Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia — and for our South Carolina-based firm, it is not just another appellate court. It is the one in our backyard.

This page covers the Fourth Circuit as we know it from practice: the court’s structure and argument calendar, where it stands after the Supreme Court’s Rutherford decision rewrote compassionate-release law, the nine district courts beneath it, and how an appeal to Richmond actually unfolds. Elizabeth Franklin-Best has handled more than 100 federal appeals across all twelve circuits and the U.S. Supreme Court, and her admissions reach from this circuit’s bar to the high court and every other federal circuit; Best Lawyers in America 2026 recognizes her as a “Best Lawyer” in Appellate Practice, and the firm carries a Chambers USA 2026 ranking in Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations. Find the rest of the directory at our federal courts page, and the process itself at our federal criminal appeals hub.

For families facing a federal conviction anywhere from Maryland to South Carolina to the West Virginia districts, our paid, one-hour initial consultation is the place to start: we review the judgment and record from a home-circuit vantage point and lay out the realistic options, appeal first among them.

Quick Answer: Fourth Circuit Appeals

Question	Answer
What does the Fourth Circuit cover?	Appeals from nine districts in Maryland, the Carolinas, Virginia, and West Virginia, decided at the Lewis F. Powell Jr. Courthouse & Annex, 1100 East Main Street, Richmond.
How long do I have to file an appeal?	Fourteen days from entry of judgment, per Rule 4(b) — in a circuit that includes the EDVA “rocket docket,” that clock can follow a very fast case.
Is an appeal a new trial?	No. Richmond tests the trial-court record against the standards of review; nothing is retried and no new evidence is received.
Who decides the appeal?	Three judges drawn from 15 authorized judgeships — the largest bench among the eastern circuits — with en banc rehearing reserved for exceptional cases.
Is the firm admitted to the Fourth Circuit?	Yes — this is our home circuit. The firm is South Carolina-based, and Elizabeth Franklin-Best is admitted to the Fourth Circuit and to two of its district courts, the District of South Carolina and the District of Maryland.

Key Takeaways

• The Fourth Circuit reviews federal cases from Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia at the Lewis F. Powell Jr. Courthouse in Richmond, with 15 judgeships authorized by 28 U.S.C. § 44.
• This is our home circuit: the firm is based in South Carolina, and Elizabeth Franklin-Best is admitted to the Fourth Circuit plus the District of South Carolina and the District of Maryland.
• No circuit decided more compassionate-release motions in FY2025 — 572, with 81 granted (14.2%) — and Fourth Circuit law from McCoy to Muhammad shaped the field nationally before Rutherford reset it in May 2026.
• United States v. Muhammad makes the § 3582(c)(1)(A) exhaustion requirement a waivable claim-processing rule here, with the 30-day lapse a true alternative to full exhaustion.
• The court hears argument during six scheduled sitting weeks per term in Richmond — and occasionally on the road, including a session in Greenville, South Carolina, in the 2026–27 term.
• The Eastern District of Virginia runs the famous “rocket docket,” which compresses trial timelines and makes early appellate planning essential.
• The Rule 4(b) notice of appeal is due 14 days after entry of judgment in every one of the circuit’s nine districts.
• Each district court has its own researched guide below; we handle trial, appellate, and post-conviction work throughout the circuit.

The Fourth Circuit at a Glance

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit serves the mid-Atlantic and Southeast: Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, spanning nine federal districts. Congress authorizes 15 judgeships for the court under 28 U.S.C. § 44 — more than any other circuit on the eastern seaboard — and it sits at the Lewis F. Powell Jr. Courthouse & Annex at 1100 East Main Street in Richmond, Virginia.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a South Carolina firm, which makes the Fourth Circuit home ground: Elizabeth Franklin-Best is admitted to this court and to two of its district courts directly — the District of South Carolina and the District of Maryland. The docket here runs the full spread of federal criminal work, from the white-collar and government-contracting fraud cases that cluster around Northern Virginia and Maryland to drug, firearms, and public-corruption prosecutions across the Carolinas and West Virginia — plus an enormous volume of sentencing and post-conviction litigation.

Anyone convicted in those nine districts will have the case reviewed in Richmond on direct appeal, by a panel of three judges whose published decisions bind every district court in the five states. Full-court rehearing en banc exists for the exceptional case, and with fifteen authorized seats the Fourth Circuit’s en banc bench is among the largest in the country when it does convene.

How a Federal Criminal Appeal Proceeds

The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure supply the skeleton of a Richmond appeal; the Fourth Circuit’s local rules and its heavy use of unpublished dispositions supply the personality. Knowing both is part of practicing here regularly.

The notice of appeal under Rule 4(b) is due fourteen days after entry of judgment. In this circuit the warning bears repeating with extra force: a case charged in the Eastern District of Virginia can move from indictment to sentencing faster than almost anywhere in the country, and the appeal clock starts the moment judgment hits the docket. We prefer to be involved before sentencing so the notice is never in doubt.

Briefing then unfolds on the assembled record — opening, response, reply. Because the Fourth Circuit dispenses with argument in a large share of appeals when “the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials,” as its dispositions routinely put it, the brief must do the persuading by itself. Ours are built around the trial and sentencing transcripts page by page, with each issue matched to the standard of review it must survive.

Cases selected for oral argument are heard during the court’s scheduled sitting weeks in Richmond — six of them across the 2026–27 term. The panel’s written decision can affirm, reverse, vacate, or remand, and a losing party may pursue rehearing en banc and, beyond that, a certiorari petition to the Supreme Court — the path that turned this circuit’s compassionate-release docket upside down in 2026.

None of this is a retrial. Legal rulings get de novo review, facts clear-error review, sentencing and evidentiary calls abuse-of-discretion review, and unpreserved issues plain-error review — the framework that decides which arguments are worth Richmond’s attention. Our walkthroughs of the federal appellate process and the grounds for a federal appeal map that framework issue by issue.

Applied Insight: Geography shapes strategy. A defendant sentenced in the Eastern District of Virginia may reach the appeal stage months sooner than one sentenced elsewhere, with a thinner record and fewer preserved objections — which is exactly why we push to enter Fourth Circuit cases early, while objections can still be made rather than explained away. The best appellate issue is the one trial counsel preserved on purpose.

Compassionate Release Here: From McCoy to Rutherford

No corner of federal post-judgment law owes more to the Fourth Circuit than compassionate release. In United States v. McCoy, 981 F.3d 271 (4th Cir. 2020), the court held that the old policy statement did not bind judges deciding prisoner-filed motions and — most consequentially — that the crushing length of stacked § 924(c) sentences, measured against what the First Step Act would allow today, could itself support relief in an individualized case. For five years, McCoy made this circuit one of the most consequential venues in the country for sentence-reduction litigation.

That era closed on May 28, 2026. In Rutherford v. United States, the Supreme Court held that nonretroactive changes in sentencing law are not extraordinary and compelling reasons under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), invalidating the Sentencing Commission’s contrary § 1B1.13(b)(6) and displacing McCoy‘s sentence-disparity rationale; the companion Fernandez decision added that challenges to the conviction itself must travel through a § 2255 motion. What survives is still substantial: medical deterioration, advanced age, family-caregiver emergencies, and abuse in custody all remain viable grounds, and the Fourth Circuit’s procedural law stays defendant-friendly.

The procedural piece matters more than people realize. Under United States v. Muhammad, 16 F.4th 126 (4th Cir. 2021), the statute’s exhaustion requirement is a non-jurisdictional claim-processing rule — the government can waive it by not objecting — and the 30-day lapse after a request to the warden is a true alternative to completing the BOP’s administrative process. And the volume tells its own story: in fiscal year 2025, district courts in this circuit decided 572 compassionate-release motions, more than any other circuit in the nation, granting 81 (14.2%, against a 14.1% national rate), per the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s FY2025 data. Judges here see these motions constantly — which means a motion must be precise to stand out.

Argument Weeks in Richmond, En Banc, and the Rocket Docket

The Fourth Circuit organizes its calendar around scheduled argument sessions at the Powell Courthouse — six sitting weeks across the 2026–27 term — and it periodically holds special sessions around the circuit, including one scheduled in Greenville, South Carolina, in October 2026. Between sittings, a substantial share of appeals is decided on the briefs, frequently by unpublished opinion; getting a case argued, and published, is itself an advocacy goal in this circuit.

En banc rehearing requires a majority of the active judges, and the petition in a criminal case is due 14 days after the panel’s judgment. The full court’s fifteen authorized seats make Fourth Circuit en banc decisions weighty events — and hard to obtain, which is why the panel brief deserves the bulk of the investment.

One district deserves its own paragraph. The Eastern District of Virginia — Alexandria, Richmond, Norfolk, Newport News — has been called the “rocket docket” for decades, a nickname that appears in the district’s own published opinions. Criminal cases there are charged, tried, and sentenced on timelines that startle lawyers from other jurisdictions. For defendants, speed cuts against deliberation: suppression motions, expert disclosures, and objections must be ready almost immediately, and any appeal inherits whatever the compressed schedule left in the record.

A note on where this circuit stands in the post-Bruen firearms fight: unlike the Third Circuit, the Fourth has shut the door on as-applied challenges to the felon-in-possession statute. In United States v. Hunt, 123 F.4th 697 (4th Cir. 2024), the court held that its pre-Bruen precedent survives — a felon cannot win an as-applied § 922(g)(1) challenge here absent a pardon or the invalidation of the underlying conviction, and no individualized dangerousness finding is required. For federal firearms defendants in this circuit, the Second Amendment issue must be preserved with an eye toward the Supreme Court, not the Richmond panel.

A Home-Circuit Practice

We represent federal defendants nationwide, but the Fourth Circuit is where this firm lives. Our office sits in South Carolina, inside the circuit; Elizabeth Franklin-Best is admitted not only to the court of appeals but directly to the District of South Carolina and the District of Maryland; and the trip to the Powell Courthouse for argument is a drive up I-95, not a flight across the country.

That presence shows up in the record. The bulk of Elizabeth Franklin-Best’s federal appellate work — roughly 90 of her appellate dockets — has been litigated in this circuit, and the District of South Carolina is the firm’s busiest trial and habeas forum. Her reported Fourth Circuit decisions span the work this court sees most. She served as appellate counsel for the defendant in United States v. Slager, 912 F.3d 224 (4th Cir. 2019), a sentencing appeal arising from a South Carolina police shooting, and she has carried state prisoners’ federal habeas cases to published judgments in King v. Riley, 76 F.4th 259 (4th Cir. 2023), Vandross v. Stirling, 986 F.3d 442 (4th Cir. 2021), and Bryant v. Stephan, 998 F.3d 128 (4th Cir. 2021), along with capital habeas litigation in Wood v. Stirling, 27 F.4th 269 (4th Cir. 2022). We cite these as evidence of experience in this court, not as a forecast of any result.

Familiarity of that kind never decides a case — no relationship or reputation does, and we promise no outcomes — but it does mean the local rules, the argument calendar, and the rhythms of the circuit’s district courts are part of our daily working knowledge rather than something researched for the occasion.

It also means continuity. A client whose case begins in a South Carolina or North Carolina district court can keep the same firm through sentencing, the appeal in Richmond, and any post-conviction litigation that follows — with the strategy built from day one around how Fourth Circuit panels actually review records.

District Courts in the Fourth Circuit

Nine trial courts — from Baltimore down through the Carolinas and across both Virginias — send their criminal judgments to Richmond. We have built a researched guide for every one:

• District of Maryland
• Eastern District of North Carolina
• Middle District of North Carolina
• Western District of North Carolina
• District of South Carolina
• Eastern District of Virginia
• Western District of Virginia
• Northern District of West Virginia
• Southern District of West Virginia

Every conviction in these nine courts carries appeal rights to the Fourth Circuit. From our home base inside the circuit, we handle the trial work, the Richmond appeal, and the post-conviction motions that return to the sentencing court afterward.

Frequently Asked Questions

Talk With a Fourth Circuit Appeals Lawyer

This is the circuit we wake up in. If your federal case — or your family member’s — was tried or sentenced in Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, or West Virginia, a paid, one-hour initial consultation gets you a candid, home-circuit read on the record: which issues were preserved, which standards of review they face in Richmond, and whether an appeal, a compassionate-release motion, or another path fits the facts. Fourteen days is all Rule 4(b) allows, so reach out while the choice is still yours to make.