United States v. Sinclair

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,  Plaintiff-Appellee, v.  No. 01-4588 WELDON BERNARD SINCLAIR, Defendant-Appellant.  Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Wilmington. James C. Fox, Senior District Judge. (CR-01-2FO) Submitted: March 14, 2002 Decided: March 26, 2002 Before NIEMEYER and KING, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. COUNSEL Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, Stephen C. Gordon, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. John Stuart Bruce, United States Attorney, Anne M. Hayes, Assistant United States Attorney, Jennifer May-Parker, Assis- tant United States Attorney, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. 2 UNITED STATES v. SINCLAIR Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See Local Rule 36(c). OPINION PER CURIAM: Weldon Bernard Sinclair appeals his conviction and sentence on the ground that at the time of sentencing, the district court should have revisited the issue of his competence to plead guilty. In support of his claim, he presented the medical report of a neuro-psychologist who opined that Sinclair suffers from significant deficits in cognitive ability and information processing. However, the psychologist also opined that Sinclair was competent to plead when he did so and was competent to proceed with the resolution of his case, so long as spe- cial care was taken to make sure he understood.1 Because there were no abnormalities in Sinclair’s Fed. R. Crim. P. 11 plea colloquy such that the district court should have questioned Sinclair further as to his mental competency, and given the opinions in the expert’s report as to Sinclair’s competency, we find no error by the district court in failing to revisit the issue of Sinclair’s compe- tency at sentencing.2 Accordingly, we affirm Sinclair’s conviction and 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 1 We note that both the district court and counsel took special care to fully explain to Sinclair the proceedings against him and the effect of his plea on his rights. 2 Sinclair’s reliance upon United States v. Damon, 191 F.3d 561 (4th Cir. 1999), is misplaced. In Damon, we remanded for further inquiry into Damon’s competence because he, unlike Sinclair, testified at his plea colloquy that he was under the influence of anti-depressant medication, which in some circumstances is known to impair judgment. Here there were no circumstances present which required the district court to con- duct a more searching inquiry into Sinclair’s competence.