United States v. Marian Hudak

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: October 7, 2025
• Docket: 24-4313
• Status: Published

Opinion

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PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 24-4313

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

MARIAN HUDAK,

Defendant – Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. William L. Osteen, Jr., District Judge. (1:23−cr−00231−WO−1)

Argued: September 12, 2025 Decided: October 7, 2025

Before DIAZ, Chief Judge, and WILKINSON and WYNN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge Diaz and Judge Wynn joined.

ARGUED: Eugene Ernest Lester, III, LESTER LAW, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellant. Brant S. Levine, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General, Elizabeth Parr Hecker, Matthew N. Drecun, Appellate Section, Civil Rights Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C.; Sandra J. Hairston, United States Attorney, Joanna G. McFadden, Assistant United States Attorney, Ashley E. Waid, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellee. USCA4 Appeal: 24-4313 Doc: 65 Filed: 10/07/2025 Pg: 2 of 13

WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

In Marian Hudak’s federal hate crimes trial, the central question was whether he

assaulted his victims “because of” their race. The jury found that he did. It is not hard to

see why: Hudak kept a number of Nazi and Ku Klux Klan objects in his home and yelled

racial epithets at his victims while he attacked them.

On appeal, Hudak argues that the jury should have considered evidence of his

mental illness and should not have considered evidence of his Nazi memorabilia. We reject

both arguments whole cloth. Hudak was given a fair trial. Now, he must accept the

punishment for his racially motivated assaults.

I.

Hudak’s first victim, J.D., was a Mexican-American man who lived next door to

him. Hudak had a history of hostile encounters with J.D. On one occasion, he used his truck

to run J.D. off the road. On another, he approached J.D. in the street, rolled down his

window, and yelled “f------ Mexican, go back to Mexico, go to hell.” On yet another

occasion, Hudak posted an image of J.D.’s house on Facebook and commented “idiots from

Mexico in my neighborhood, illegal immigrants.” Then, when J.D.’s nine-year-old sister

walked past Hudak’s house to reach the school bus on the first day of school, Hudak yelled

“you need to go back to your f------ country.” J.A. 374–78; 413–14.

The incident at issue here occurred on November 27, 2021. J.D. awoke that day to

find that the side of his car facing Hudak’s house had been egged. Later the same day,

when J.D. exited his front door, Hudak appeared and shouted that J.D.’s car was “too loud,”

that its headlights were “too bright,” and that he was “going to kick [J.D.’s] butt.” He added

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that J.D.’s family was “just a whole bunch of f------ Mexicans” who “should go to hell.”

When J.D. responded that he would defend himself if Hudak entered his property, Hudak

said that he was “going to kill” J.D. and chased J.D. to the back of his car, where he punched

and kicked J.D. in the ribs and the face. Repeating that he was “going to kill” J.D., he

knocked J.D. to the ground and grabbed J.D.’s girlfriend by her hair. Hudak did not cease

the attack until neighbors came outside. J.A. 415–30.

Hudak’s second victim was a black man named J.S. On October 13, 2022, J.S. found

himself sitting in traffic next to Hudak’s truck, which was festooned with a Confederate

flag and a variety of other flags and stickers. With his window lowered, Hudak called J.S.

a “n-----,” told him to “come here, boy,” and yelled that he was “going to get” him. Hudak

then pulled his truck in front of J.S.’s car, parked, got out, and punched J.S.’s window four

or five times. Through it all, he wore black gloves and combat boots and continued to call

J.S. a “n-----.” J.A. 238–41.

When J.S. sped away, Hudak chased him. As they reached J.S.’s apartment

complex, Hudak blocked the entrance with his truck and got out again, yelling that he

“kn[ew] where [J.S.] live[d],” that he “ha[d] pictures,” that he would “be back,” and that

he was “going to shoot” J.S. Hudak also yelled that he would “shoot that b----,” referring

to J.S.’s girlfriend, who had come outside. Eventually, after J.S. and his girlfriend called

the police, Hudak drove away. J.A. 250–58.

II.

Hudak was charged with two federal hate crimes. For his assault of J.D., Hudak was

charged under 42 U.S.C. § 3631(a) with “willfully injur[ing], intimidat[ing] and

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interfer[ing] with J.D., and attempt[ing] to injure, intimidate and interfere with J.D.,

because of J.D.’s race and national origin, and because J.D. was occupying a dwelling.”

For his assault of J.S., Hudak was charged under 18 U.S.C. § 245(b)(2) with “by force and

threat of force, willfully intimidat[ing] and interfer[ing] with[] J.S., and attempt[ing] to

intimidate and interfere with J.S., because of J.S.’s race and color, and because J.S. was

enjoying” a public roadway.

At trial, Hudak conceded that he had the specific intent to injure, intimidate, and

interfere with J.D. and to intimidate and interfere with J.S. But he contested that he had

assaulted either man “because of” the victim’s race, color, or national origin. Instead, he

argued, the two incidents were the product of generalized road rage.

The government introduced a litany of items recovered from Hudak’s truck and

house that shed light on the motive for his attacks. They included a Confederate flag, a

KKK flag, two Nazi flags, a swastika patch, a ring bearing the Iron Cross, and a comic

book with racist caricatures of black and Hispanic people. The government also presented

the testimony of other people in town who had been on the receiving end of Hudak’s racial

epithets. One woman testified that Hudak blasted “black[s] and Mexicans, you need to go

back to your country” using a speaker system attached to his truck. Another testified that

Hudak yelled “f--- you, n-----” when she was next to him at stoplight. J.A. 312–18.

The jury was persuaded by the government’s case, returning convictions on both

counts. The court then sentenced Hudak to 41 months in prison.

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III.

In this appeal, Hudak challenges two of the district court’s evidentiary rulings: one

excluding evidence of his mental illness and the other admitting evidence of his Nazi

memorabilia. We review both for abuse of discretion. United States v. Caldwell, 7 F.4th

191, 204 (4th Cir. 2021). A district court abuses its discretion “if its decision is guided by

erroneous legal principles or rests upon a clearly erroneous factual finding.” Id.

A.

We address the court’s handling of mental health evidence first. This evidence

primarily took the form of an expert report by Dawn Graney, a psychologist. Hudak also

attempted to offer his own testimony on the subject.

The expert report was based on two meetings in September 2023 at which Graney

“assess[ed] [Hudak’s] competency to stand trial.” As a result, the report contained little

information about Hudak’s mental health at the time of his offenses—November 2021 and

October 2022. What information it did contain about those periods did not paint a clear

picture. According to the report, Hudak got into “political conflicts” with his neighbors in

June 2021; separated from his wife in December 2021; and experienced a “worsening of

some OCD symptoms (e.g., fear of contamination and excessive hand washing)” in March

2022. By April 2022, however, Hudak “seemed to be doing somewhat better overall.” The

report’s discussion of Hudak’s offense conduct was vaguer still: “[Hudak and his victims]

insulted and threatened each other.” J.A. 128–32.

The report concluded that Hudak was competent to stand trial. But, in the expert

disclosure provided by Hudak’s counsel, Graney stated the following opinion: “[Between

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April 2021 and October 2022], [Hudak] suffered from serious mental health issues

including depressive, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive, and psychotic symptoms.” “It is

more likely than not to a reasonable degree of medical certainty,” the disclosure continued,

“that he would not have engaged in the alleged conduct but for the[se] serious mental health

issues.” J.A. 129–30.

When Hudak took the stand, his counsel asked him whether he had “suffered from

mental illness,” “been treated for mental illness,” or had “symptoms . . . related to mental

illness.” The court sustained objections from the government, so Hudak did not answer.

J.A. 514–16.

On a motion in limine, the district court excluded Graney’s expert testimony. It

rested its decision primarily on Federal Rule of Evidence 702, which permits expert

testimony only when the testimony “will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence

or to determine a fact in issue.” Fed. R. Evid. 702(a). In other words, the testimony must

be both “relevant” and “reliable.” Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharms., Inc., 509 U.S. 579,

589 (1993). The court held that Graney’s testimony failed to meet this standard because

her report contained “no factual basis” for her opinion that Hudak’s mental health was

impaired at the time of his offense conduct. Moreover, her framing of Hudak’s violent

conduct as mere “insult[s] and threat[s]” was “woefully incomplete.” J.A. 123–34.

The district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding Graney’s expert testimony

under Rule 702. It is axiomatic that a court may exclude an expert opinion when “there is

simply too great an analytical gap between the data and the opinion proffered.” Gen. Elec.

Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 146 (1997). Here there was a striking incongruence between

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Graney’s expert disclosure, which surmised that mental illness was a cause of Hudak’s

offense conduct, and her report, which included almost no facts about the period of time in

which the conduct occurred. It was reasonable for the court to conclude that this analytical

gap made Graney’s opinion unreliable.

The district court alternatively rested its decision to exclude Hudak’s mental health

evidence on the Insanity Defense Reform Act (IDRA), which provides that “[m]ental

disease or defect does not . . . constitute a defense” to a federal crime unless the defendant

pleads insanity. 18 U.S.C. § 17(a). Since Hudak did not plead insanity, the court held, he

could not present evidence that mental illness caused him to assault J.D. and J.S.—either

in the form of Graney’s report or his own testimony.

The district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding this evidence under the

IDRA, either. The plain language of the statute “bars a defendant who is not pursuing an

insanity defense from offering evidence of his lack of volitional control as an alternative

defense.” United States v. Worrell, 313 F.3d 867, 875 (4th Cir. 2002). It is true that we

have suggested the IDRA permits an exception when mental health evidence is “presented

to negate the specific intent element of a specific intent crime,” rather than to establish lack

of volitional control generally. Id. at 874. But the exception applies only in “rare” cases,

id., and this is not one of them.

The example we gave in Worrell of a case that might meet the exception involved a

man charged with threatening to shoot a police officer. Id. at 873 (discussing United States

v. Staggs, 553 F.2d 1073 (7th Cir. 1977)). The man denied making the threat and sought to

offer evidence that he had a mental condition that rendered it “highly unlikely” he would

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have made the threat. Id. Such evidence would potentially be permissible under the IDRA,

we observed, because it was offered “to show he did not do it, not that he could not help

it.” Id. at 874. Hudak’s argument that his mental illness “contributed to his poor behavior

regulation,” Opening Br. at 7, by contrast, is an argument that he could not help it, not that

he did not do it. It is therefore precisely the kind of “diminished capacity evidence . . . in

disguise” barred by the IDRA. Worrell, 313 F.3d at 873.

Setting aside Rule 702 and the IDRA, Hudak’s attempt to introduce mental health

evidence suffered from a more fundamental problem: his mental health was not particularly

relevant to the factual question facing the jury. The jury was asked to decide whether Hudak

assaulted his victims “because of” their race, color, and national origin. That question is

most often answered by evidence (or a lack of evidence) of racial animus, not evidence of

mental illness.

The “ordinary meaning” of the phrase “because of” is “by reason of” or “on account

of.” Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644, 656 (2020). Guided by this insight, the

Supreme Court has interpreted the words “because” and “because of” across a range of

statutes to incorporate the traditional but-for causation standard. See id. (Title VII’s

antidiscrimination provision); Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, 570 U.S. 338, 352

(2013) (Title VII’s antiretaliation provision); Gross v. FBL Fin. Servs., Inc., 557 U.S. 167,

176–77 (2009) (Age Discrimination in Employment Act); see also Burrage v. United

States, 571 U.S. 204, 210–16 (2014) (applying the same logic to the words “results from”

in the Controlled Substances Act and analogizing them to “because of”). We see no reason

to treat the statutes here differently. Where the government alleges that a defendant

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committed assaults “because of” the victim’s protected characteristics under 42 U.S.C.

§ 3631(a) and 18 U.S.C. § 245(b)(2), the government must show only that the protected

characteristics were a but-for cause of the assaults. Accord United States v. Porter, 928

F.3d 947, 956 (10th Cir. 2019); United States v. Miller, 767 F.3d 585, 594 (6th Cir. 2014).

This standard recognizes that events often have “multiple but-for causes.” Bostock,

590 U.S. at 656. A criminal defendant may violently attack his neighbor both because of

the neighbor’s race and because the defendant suffers from a mental illness that makes it

challenging for him to control his behavior. Indeed, the very act of violently attacking one’s

neighbor suggests that the defendant is not mentally sound. In most cases short of insanity,

then, mental health evidence is besides the point. As long as the defendant would not have

attacked his neighbor if the neighbor were a different race, the defendant has committed

the attack “because of” race within the meaning of § 3631(a) and § 245(b)(2).

Any other approach would allow mental health defenses to swallow the hate crimes

laws. Congress enacted these statutes in the 1960s “against a background of racial

violence.” Johnson v. Mississippi, 421 U.S. 213, 225 (1975). Then, as now, much of the

racial violence plaguing our country was committed by mentally disturbed people.

Congress intended the hate crimes laws to “deter and punish” anyone “who would forcibly

suppress the free exercise of civil rights” of others. Id. at 224. The hate crimes laws are

thus aimed squarely at people like Hudak.

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Because the district court’s decision to exclude Hudak’s mental health evidence was

a permissible exercise of its discretion whether considered under Rule 702 or the IDRA,

we affirm. *

B.

We next address the court’s handling of Hudak’s Nazi memorabilia. The relevant

evidence included two Nazi flags, a swastika patch, and a ring bearing the Iron Cross, all

of which was recovered from Hudak’s home, plus the testimony of a state probation officer

who saw a Nazi flag draped over Hudak’s bedroom door.

In a pretrial ruling, the court initially excluded this evidence under Rule 403. Nazi

memorabilia was likely to be “more associated in a lay juror’s mind with antisemitism”

than with prejudice against “blacks and Mexicans,” the court found, so its probative value

was substantially outweighed by a danger of unfair prejudice. The court noted that Hudak

should not be “convicted just for being a bad -- an antisemitic person.” The court made

clear, however, that its ruling was “preliminary” and that Hudak’s Nazi memorabilia could

become “fair game” depending on the defenses Hudak chose to present at trial. J.A. 156–

69, 205–06.

When Hudak took the stand, he referred on direct examination to owning “Nazi

flags.” He added that he enjoyed collecting Confederate and other historical flags because

* Hudak also argues that the district court should have admitted his mental health evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b). This argument is both frivolous and forfeited because it was not raised below. See Richardson v. Clarke, 52 F.4th 614, 625 (4th Cir. 2022).

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he was a “collector”; because he “support[s] [the] military”; and “because of the history of

war . . . not any racisms, not any hate.” In light of this testimony, the court reversed its

preliminary ruling as to the admissibility of the Nazi memorabilia, reasoning that Hudak

had “opened the door” to it by casting himself as a “military collector.” The memorabilia,

the court suggested, now had greater probative value. J.A 519–20, 540–42, 592–93.

The district court’s change of heart was not an abuse of discretion. “Parties take

risks in making arguments squarely rebuttable” using evidence they would prefer not be

admitted. United States v. Birchette, 908 F.3d 50, 61 (4th Cir. 2018). “Strategic risks are

just that—risks, and risks that can yield rewards may also carry consequences.” Id. In this

instance, Hudak was on notice that there might be consequences if he presented a defense

that placed his Nazi memorabilia at issue. Yet he chose to do so anyways by framing

himself as a military collector.

There is a difference between someone who is legitimately interested in the military

history of the Civil War and World War II and someone who is motivated by the

dehumanizing ideologies that those wars defeated. It is the jury’s job to determine which

is which. The Nazi swastika is, like the burning of a cross, a universal “symbol of hate”

that can carry a range of insidious meanings. Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 357 (2003);

see also United States v. Young, 916 F.3d 368, 378–79 (4th Cir. 2019) (affirming admission

of Nazi memorabilia to show “predisposition to support terrorist activity”).

But Hudak points out that it was not “unlawful” for him to possess Nazi

memorabilia. Opening Br. at 10. He is, of course, correct on that much. It is “the proudest

boast” of our First Amendment “that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that

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we hate.’” Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. 218, 246 (2017) (quoting United States v. Schwimmer,

279 U.S. 644, 655 (1929) (Holmes, J., dissenting)). Hudak was free to possess Nazi

memorabilia in his home and to otherwise peacefully express his views, no matter how

odious.

This case, however, is about hate crimes, not hate speech. Violent physical assaults

are “not by any stretch of the imagination expressive conduct protected by the First

Amendment.” Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476, 484 (1993). And it is well established

that Congress may account for racially discriminatory motives when penalizing criminal

conduct, as it did in the hate crimes laws at issue here. See id. at 487–88 (upholding a law

that imposed enhanced penalties for crimes committed “because of” race). While Hudak

was entitled to possess despicable Nazi symbols, the jury was entitled to consider that fact

when deciding whether he assaulted J.D. and J.S. because of their race, color, and national

origin.

How much meaning to assign the Nazi memorabilia was ultimately a question of

weight, not admissibility. But we see no abuse of discretion in the district court’s

conclusion that Hudak “opened the door to it[],” regardless of whether it would initially

have been admissible. Birchette, 908 F.3d at 61.

IV.

We live in a time in which racial, ethnic, and religious antagonisms are “on the

march.” United States v. Sherifi, 107 F.4th 309, 318 (4th Cir. 2024). Hudak’s assaults of

his fellow citizens were all too emblematic of this trend. Their harm lay not only in the

injuries inflicted on two men and their property, but in the lost safety and dignity of all

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members of the targeted groups. In Hudak’s balled fists and combat boots lay a message:

you are not welcome here.

In Hudak’s arrest and conviction, however, we find a different message. Blackstone

reminds us that “among crimes of different natures those should be most severely punished,

which are the most destructive of the public safety and happiness.” 4 William Blackstone,

Commentaries *16. Congress acted on this principle by passing federal laws “directed at

crimes of racial violence.” Johnson, 421 U.S. at 226. And it was in service of those laws

that the jurors here convicted Hudak. In doing so, they expressed the enduring judgment

of the American people that crimes of hate reflect neither who we are nor ever shall be.

Hudak was given a fair trial by a fine district judge, as was his right. He also received

the assistance of diligent court-appointed counsel. But when all was said and done, he was

found guilty because there was a mountain of evidence that he assaulted his victims

because of their race, color, and national origin. We decline to disturb that verdict.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is affirmed.

AFFIRMED