Hodge v. United States

FISHER, JORDAN and STAPLETON, Circuit Judges

OPINION OF THE COURT

(February 3, 2009)

JORDAN, Circuit Judge

Pursuant to identical plea agreements, Irvine Hodge, Jr. and his brother Devin 1 were sentenced at the same proceeding to life imprisonment for the murder of a jewelry store owner on St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Devin’s counsel timely appealed his client’s sentence. Hodge’s counsel, however, filed a litany of motions but never a notice of appeal. In an earlier decision, we vacated Devin’s sentence because the government had breached its plea agreement by implicitly requesting a…