United States v. Gildo Ricci

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: May 28, 2026
• Docket: 25-4261
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

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UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 25-4261

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

GILDO RICCI,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Claude M. Hilton, Senior District Judge. (1:24-cr-00149-CMH-1)

Submitted: April 21, 2026 Decided: May 28, 2026

Before GREGORY, WYNN, and BERNER, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ON BRIEF: Geremy C. Kamens, Federal Public Defender, Patrick L. Bryant, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Shannon S. Quill, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. Todd W. Blanche, Deputy Attorney General, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C.; Lindsey Halligan, United States Attorney, Special Attorney, Lauren N. Beebe, Assistant United States Attorney, Christopher M. Carter, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee.

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PER CURIAM:

Gildo Ricci appeals his jury conviction and the 18-month sentence imposed for

possession with intent to distribute cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C).

Ricci asserts that the district court abused its discretion when it granted the Government’s

motion to strike a particular juror (“the Juror”) for cause without first obtaining a sufficient

factual basis to determine whether the Juror could remain impartial. The Government

responds that, because defense counsel failed to timely object to the Juror’s dismissal, Ricci

failed to preserve the issue for appeal and, thus, plain error review applies. The

Government next asserts that, regardless of which standard of review this court applies to

Ricci’s assignment of error, the court should defer to how the district court chose to conduct

voir dire. Finding no error, we affirm.

“Voir dire plays an essential role in guaranteeing a criminal defendant’s Sixth

Amendment right to an impartial jury, in that it enables the court to select an impartial jury

and assists counsel in exercising peremptory challenges.” United States v. Jeffery, 631 F.3d

669, 673 (4th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). “‘Despite its importance,

however, the adequacy of voir dire is not easily subject to appellate review,” and this court

“accord[s] great deference to the district court’s decisions about the conduct of voir dire.”

Id. (citation modified).

This “is so because a trial judge’s appraisal is ordinarily influenced by a host of

factors impossible to capture fully in the record, such as a prospective juror’s inflection,

sincerity, demeanor, candor, body language, and apprehension of duty.” United States v.

Tsarnaev, 595 U.S. 302, 312-13 (2022) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, the “trial

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court’s broad discretion in this area includes deciding what questions to ask prospective

jurors.” Id. at 313; see id. at 313-14 (finding that district court “did not abuse its broad

discretion by declining to ask about the content and extent of each juror’s media

consumption regarding the [case],” in part because, “[b]ased on years of trial experience,

the court concluded that jurors who came in with some prior knowledge would still be able

to act impartially and hold the government to its proof” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

The district court’s broad discretion also encompasses it rulings on for-cause strikes:

“It is the settled law of this circuit that a district judge retains a very broad discretion in

deciding whether to excuse a juror for cause and his decision will not be overturned except

for manifest abuse of that discretion.” United States v. Jones, 716 F.3d 851, 857 (4th Cir.

2013) (internal quotation marks omitted). That is because “[t]he trial judge is in the best

position to make judgments about the impartiality and credibility of potential jurors based

on the judge’s own evaluations of demeanor evidence and of responses to questions.”

United States v. Gutierrez, 963 F.3d 320, 334 (4th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks

omitted). And “[a]s a district judge is in the best position to make this determination, the

inquiry into a potential juror’s bias is committed to his discretion, including ample leeway

to formulate the questions to be asked.” Id. (citation modified). “Just as the trial judge has

latitude in framing the inquiry, so too does he have broad discretion in evaluating the

significance of potential juror bias.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

Although challenges to a district court’s ruling on the qualifications of jurors are

generally reviewed for abuse of discretion, see United States v. Turner, 389 F.3d 111, 115

(4th Cir. 2004), “a specific objection or request during the voir dire process is required to

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preserve the objection for appeal,” United States v. LaRouche, 896 F.2d 815, 829 (4th Cir.

1990) (emphasis omitted). In the absence of a specific objection in the trial court, this court

reviews an unpreserved voir dire issue for plain error. See United States v. Umana, 750

F.3d 320, 342 (4th Cir. 2014); see also King v. Jones, 824 F.2d 324, 326 (4th Cir. 1987)

(“Because King’s counsel failed to make a timely objection when the judge did not ask the

questions she did not preserve this issue, and the appeal on this issue must fail.”). Indeed,

“[i]f there are particular voir dire questions which counsel deems essential, and that refusal

to ask them may be reversible error, counsel must so advise the court, and state his reasons

before the court’s voir dire of the prospective jurors is completed.” King, 824 F.2d at 326

(emphasis omitted).

Under the plain error standard of review, Ricci “may not obtain relief unless: (a) the

error was plain; (b) the error affected substantial rights, meaning that there is a reasonable

probability that, but for the error, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different;

and (c) the error had a serious effect on the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial

proceedings.” United States v. Heyward, 42 F.4th 460, 465 (4th Cir. 2022) (internal

quotation marks omitted). “This standard is difficult to satisfy.” Id. (internal quotation

marks omitted).

We conclude that the district court did not reversibly err under either standard of

review. Notably, a “district court’s duty is to conduct a thorough jury-selection process

that allows the judge to evaluate whether each prospective juror is to be believed when he

says he has not formed an opinion about the case.” Tsarnaev, 595 U.S. at 313 (internal

quotation marks omitted). This “require[s] balancing the need to detect bias against the

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concern that inartful questioning could itself generate bias,” and then making a “reasoned

judgment[] in walking the line between detecting bias and creating bias.” United States v.

Smith, 919 F.3d 825, 834 (4th Cir. 2019); see also United States v. Council, 77 F.4th 240,

253 (4th Cir. 2023) (recognizing that, while the district court’s questions to the venire

“might have better homed in on a potential juror’s biases, it is also possible these more

pointed questions could well have exacerbated whatever prejudice might exist without

substantially aiding in exposing it” (citation modified)).

Moreover, we may “not . . . micro-manage [the district court’s] considered

choices.” Smith, 919 F.3d at 834. And because “trial courts possess broad discretion and

great latitude in deciding what questions should be asked on voir dire,” Council, 77 F.4th

at 253 (citation modified), this court “will not reverse a district court’s judgment based on

assumptions about how the court would have ruled had a party attempted to ask a question

it never tried to ask,” id. at 254; cf. United States v. Caro, 597 F.3d 608, 616 (4th Cir. 2010)

(“The undoubted fact that . . . [more] detailed questioning might have been somehow

helpful to [the defendant] in exercising peremptory challenges does not suffice to show

abuse of the district court’s broad discretion in conducting [a more detailed] inquiry.”

(internal quotation marks omitted)).

The district court here expressed its concern that inquiring further into the extent of

the Juror’s prior involvement in a criminal case would embarrass the Juror and, thus,

exercised its broad discretion to excuse the Juror for cause. While it is at least possible that

the district court may have ruled differently had it inquired further into the Juror’s prior

involvement in the criminal case, we may not vacate the criminal judgment “based on

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assumptions about how the court would have ruled” if it had asked the Juror questions

Ricci’s counsel never requested that the court ask. See Council, 77 F.4th at 253-54.

Moreover, rather than cite to cases in which either the Supreme Court or this court

vacated a defendant’s criminal conviction because a for-cause challenge was erroneously

granted, Ricci insists that his “case is the inverse of United States v. Rucker, 557 F.2d 1046

(4th Cir. 1977).” (Appellant’s Br. (ECF No. 24) at 17). The issue in Rucker was whether

the district court committed reversible error by refusing to grant “the defendant’s request

for a specific inquiry into the matter” when the court was on “notice that two veniremen

either were or may well have been physically or mentally incompetent to serve” based on

their answers to questions on the jury questionnaire “pertaining to physical or mental

impairment.” Rucker, 557 F.2d at 1047-49.

While “the two veniremen did not actually sit on Rucker’s jury, having been excused

by peremptory challenges,” the court concluded that “it was not within the [district] court’s

sound discretion to, in effect, require the defendant to exercise peremptory challenges on a

speculative basis so far as their disability was concerned,” id. at 1048, thereby reducing

“the number of peremptory challenges available to the defense,” id. at 1049. But there

were no such consequences here. As Ricci acknowledges, the district court’s decision to

strike the Juror for cause at most “saved the government a peremptory strike that it

otherwise would have lost” (Appellant’s Br. at 18), but it in no way affected the number of

peremptory strikes available to the defense.

Moreover, the court in Rucker expressly noted that its “holding is a narrow one,”

and it stated that holding as follows:

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When the district judge had reason to believe from information supplied by the veniremen . . . that one of them may well have lacked, and one did lack, physical or mental capacity to serve as jurors, the defendant’s request for a specific inquiry into the matter was reasonable and should have been granted.

Rucker, 557 F.2d at 1049. This holding has no application here.

Ricci also asserts that “[t]he only possible defense of the for-cause strike is that

something about [the Juror’s] involvement in a prior drug case somehow inherently made

him impartial, regardless of his actual role in that case or whether the facts were at all

similar to this case.” (Appellant’s Br. at 18). According to Ricci, such a defense cannot

support the district court excusing the Juror because “this [c]ourt has repeatedly held that

a district court abuses its discretion if it applies a per se rule of disqualification.” (Id.)

(internal quotation marks omitted).

But the cases upon which Ricci relies do not support the proposition for which they

are cited. Indeed, each case Ricci cites in support involved a district court’s alleged abuse

of discretion in seating specific jurors who the defense claimed should have been excused

based on a per se rule of disqualification or for actual bias. See Gutierrez, 963 F.3d at 332

(“We review the district court’s decisions to seat these jurors for abuse of discretion, and

we will find abuse only where a per se rule of disqualification applies or where the trial

court demonstrated a clear disregard for the actual bias of the juror.” (internal quotation

marks omitted)); Umana, 750 F.3d at 338 (same); Turner, 389 F.3d at 115-17 (stating same

standard and discussing the court’s reluctance to apply a per se rule of disqualification for

various types of prospective jurors, including “former jurors in comparable cases, or

defendants in similar suits,” because the court defers to the district court’s discretion in

conducting voir dire). Contrary to Ricci’s assertion, none of these cases hold that, “to the 7 USCA4 Appeal: 25-4261 Doc: 34 Filed: 05/28/2026 Pg: 8 of 8

extent . . . the district court would have struck any prospective juror who was involved in

any way with an earlier drug case, the court committed reversible error.” (Appellant’s Br.

at 19).

Accordingly, we defer to the district court’s decision to dismiss the Juror for cause,

and we therefore affirm the criminal judgment. We dispense with oral argument because

the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court

and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED