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PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 25-4318
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
ISAAC FIDEL MARTINEZ-CHAVEZ, a/k/a Issac Fidel Martinez-Chavez,
Defendant – Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at
Roanoke. Elizabeth K. Dillon, Chief District Judge. (7:24-cr-00011-EKD)
Argued: May 8, 2026 Decided: September 9, 2026
Before GREGORY, HARRIS, and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Richardson wrote the opinion, in which Judge
Gregory and Judge Harris joined.
ARGUED: Erin Margaret Trodden, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER,
Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Jonathan Patrick Jones, OFFICE OF THE
UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Mary E.
Maguire, Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER,
Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Robert N. Tracci, Acting United States Attorney,
OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlottesville, Virginia, for
Appellee.
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RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge:
Just after midnight on New Year’s Day 2024, a Franklin County sheriff’s lieutenant
clocked a Kia doing sixty in a forty-five. The Kia sped up, cut its lights, and pulled into a
yard. The driver and sole occupant was Isaac Martinez-Chavez, a convicted felon. When
the lieutenant stopped him, a sawed-off .22 rifle, a .22 revolver, and .22 caliber ammunition
lay inside the car. A jury convicted Martinez-Chavez of possessing firearms as a felon, 18
U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and possessing an unregistered short-barreled rifle, 26 U.S.C.
§ 5861(d).
Martinez-Chavez seeks a new trial on two grounds. He contends that the
prosecutor’s closing argument crossed the line, and that the district court should have told
the jury it could draw an adverse inference from the government’s failure to preserve
recordings of the arresting officer’s radio calls to dispatch. The government concedes that
two of its closing remarks were improper. But these remarks did not prejudice MartinezChavez, whether considered separately or together. And the district court acted within its
discretion in refusing the adverse-inference instruction. We affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
A. Trial Evidence
Lieutenant Justin Hylton was patrolling for drunk drivers on New Year’s Day when
a Kia passed him at speed. He turned around, briefly lost sight of the car, then caught up
as it accelerated and “blacked out” its headlights and taillights. J.A. 795. When Hylton
flashed his emergency lights, the Kia turned quickly and parked at an angle on the grass
outside a house. Hylton pulled in behind and shined his spotlight on the car. He saw the
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driver leaning into the front passenger area, apparently reaching for something. Hylton
drew his weapon and ordered the driver out.
Neither the pursuit nor the initial stop was recorded. Hylton’s patrol car had no dash
camera, and—contrary to department policy—he did not activate his body camera until
Martinez-Chavez was behind the car. But Hylton was not the only witness to the pursuit.
Officer Poulin had been on the phone with Hylton when the Kia flew past, and, once the
call ended, he monitored Hylton’s radio traffic with dispatch in real time. When Poulin
heard Hylton report that the car had “blacked out,” he recognized the danger and drove to
the scene.
With Hylton’s body cam now on and Poulin on the scene, the officers’ cameras
captured some of what followed. Hylton checked Martinez-Chavez’s identification as he
pleaded in Spanish with a man who came out of the house: “Close the car, yes? . . . Close
it. Close it. . . . Close them, the windows, man. Please.” J.A. 1251. Poulin looked through
the car’s passenger window and saw the sawed-off rifle in the footwell. The front
passenger seat was blanketed with tools and a portable battery pack. Then dispatch
reported an outstanding felony warrant, and the officers arrested Martinez-Chavez. Their
continued search of the car revealed the revolver and .22 rounds.
At trial, Martinez-Chavez disputed that he had knowledge of the firearms. But the
only evidence he offered in support of his contention came from the testimony of Olman
Vallejos. Vallejos testified that Martinez-Chavez gave him a ride home in the Kia that
night; that he discovered the two guns in a borrowed jacket; that he slid them under the
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passenger seat without Martinez-Chavez noticing; and that he had Martinez-Chavez drop
him at a roadside store when the police appeared because he was carrying crack.
The story collapsed on the stand. Vallejos denied meeting “the defense team” before
trial and denied that anyone had shown him photographs of the guns. J.A. 1119. But on
redirect, Vallejos flipped—he said the defense team had met him at the jail and shown him
the photographs. Not only that, he conceded the point again on recross. In rebuttal, Deputy
Edwin Alejandro recounted Vallejos’s earlier, inconsistent stories: different guns, different
sizes, and a different ride home. Defense counsel’s own closing called Vallejos “clearly
addled by the drugs that he smokes.” J.A. 1197. The district court later said it “frankly
found him to be not a credible witness,” an assessment that would not, the court added,
surprise anyone “who was attending that trial.” J.A. 1407.
B. District Court Rulings
Two rulings frame this appeal. The first came before trial. Under the sheriff’s
department records-retention policy, dispatch recordings not retained as evidence are
deleted automatically after six months, while the computer-aided dispatch logs—the “call
for service,” or CFS, reports—are kept for ten years. Martinez-Chavez sent a standard
discovery letter to the prosecution on May 1, 2024, requesting Rule 16, Brady, and Jencks
material. Only months later, on October 24, did he ask for “the radio runs (or dispatch
calls) made by [Lieutenant] Hylton.” J.A. 206. Hylton asked the records custodian for
them the next day. But the recordings had already been automatically deleted on July 1,
2024, in accordance with the department’s retention policy.
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Martinez-Chavez moved for an adverse-inference instruction based on spoliation.
At the hearing, the custodian described the record-retention policy and the automatic purge.
Defense counsel told the court, “I don’t think the government acted in bad faith,” and the
“government acted with due diligence after we specifically requested this.” J.A. 634.
Ultimately, the district court denied the motion in a written opinion. Because the
recordings were not apparently exculpatory and comparable evidence remained available,
the due process holdings of California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479 (1984), afforded no
relief. Nor did United States v. Johnson, 996 F.3d 200 (4th Cir. 2021): No evidence
showed the government knew the recordings “would be relevant to an issue at trial” before
they were deleted, and their automatic disposal under the retention policy was not willful
conduct. J.A. 750.
The second ruling came during closing arguments. After cataloguing Vallejos’s
contradictions, the prosecutor said: “There are only two people who know whether
Vallejos was in the car. One of them was Vallejos, the liar; Vallejos, who under oath told
you that he has no reason to lie, and then lied to your faces several times.” J.A. 1172. No
objection followed. Then, ending his argument, the prosecutor told the jury: “This case is
important not just to the defendant, but also to the government and to the law enforcement
personnel. These folks are professionals who are out there protecting the community and
taking felons, armed felons”—at which point defense counsel objected to the
“[i]nappropriate argument and vouching.” J.A. 1179. The court overruled the objection,
and the prosecutor finished: the officers are “removing armed felons, especially felons
armed with sawed-off rifles, off the streets. Toward that end, I ask that you find the
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defendant guilty of all charges.” J.A. 1179–80. At the recess, Counsel renewed the
objection, which was overruled again. While acknowledging that “both parties have an
interest in the case,” the court confirmed that it would instruct the jury about weighing lawenforcement testimony. J.A. 1180–82. It did so, charging the jury that an officer’s status
“does not mean that his or her testimony necessarily deserves more or less consideration
or greater or lesser weight than that of any other witness.” J.A. 1220–21. The court also
charged that “arguments (including closing arguments) . . . by the lawyers are not
evidence” and that “[i]f what a lawyer says . . . is different from the evidence, the evidence
is what matters.” J.A. 1215–16.
The jury convicted Martinez-Chavez on both counts, and the court imposed a
sentence of fifty-nine months. Martinez-Chavez appealed.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Any Improper Closing Arguments Did Not Prejudice Martinez-Chavez
A prosecutor’s remarks warrant reversal only if they were improper and
“prejudicially affected the defendant’s substantial rights so as to deprive the defendant of
a fair trial.” United States v. Chorman, 910 F.2d 102, 113 (4th Cir. 1990) (quoting United
States v. Brockington, 849 F.2d 872, 875 (4th Cir. 1988)). Six factors guide the prejudice
inquiry: the tendency of the remarks to mislead; whether the remarks were isolated or
extensive; the strength of proof absent the remarks; whether the remarks deliberately
diverted the jury to extraneous matters; whether defense counsel’s improper conduct
invited the remarks; and whether curative instructions were given. See United States v.
Harrison, 716 F.2d 1050, 1052 (4th Cir. 1983); United States v. Lighty, 616 F.3d 321, 361
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(4th Cir. 2010). The factors are weighed “in the context of the entire trial, and no one
factor is dispositive.” Lighty, 616 F.3d at 361. Martinez-Chavez objected to the lawenforcement remark at trial, but not the “liar” remark. We take the preserved claim first.
1. The Law-Enforcement Remark
Because the objection to the law-enforcement remark was preserved, the
government must show that the remark was harmless. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(a). Here,
the government does not defend the prosecutor’s parting appeal—that the case was
“important . . . to the government and to the law enforcement personnel” who work to take
armed felons “off the streets,” and that “[t]oward that end” the jury should convict. J.A.
1179–80. Juries find facts; they do not weigh what a verdict means to the prosecution or
to the officers who built the case. See United States v. Runyon, 707 F.3d 475, 515 (4th Cir.
2013) (urging the jury to send a message to the community was improper). We accept the
government’s concession. The remark was still harmless.
Start with the tendency of the prosecutor’s remarks to mislead the jury, which was
slight. That the government cares about the outcome of its own prosecution told the jury
nothing it did not already know. And while the appeal to community-protecting work may
have improperly bolstered the officers, the court’s charge addressed any potential danger.
The instructions stated that an officer’s testimony deserves no “more or less consideration
or greater or lesser weight than that of any other witness,” and lawyers’ arguments “are not
evidence.” J.A. 1220–21, 1215–16. Instructions of this kind “minimize[] any risk” that a
fleeting argument, rather than evidence, drives a verdict. Runyon, 707 F.3d at 515.
Therefore it’s unlikely that the jury was misled given the curative instruction.
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The second factor also weighs against Martinez-Chavez. The prosecutor’s remark
was isolated—a few sentences closing an argument that spans more than twenty transcript
pages, nearly all of them a march through the evidence.
The fourth and fifth factors do favor Martinez-Chavez. The comment was
deliberate. Indeed, the prosecutor defended it as something that “counterbalances the
attack on [the officers’] credibility.” J.A. 1181. And the defense, which had not yet closed,
invited nothing. 1 But deliberateness without more does not establish prejudice. See United
States v. Woods, 710 F.3d 195, 204 (4th Cir. 2013).
Finally, the third factor—the strength of the proof—weighs heavily against reversal.
Set the prosecutor’s remarks aside, and the case remains straightforward. Martinez-Chavez
sat alone in a car with a sawed-off rifle visible through the passenger window, a revolver
on the floorboard, and same-caliber ammunition in the console. His evasion did not depend
on Hylton’s memory: Poulin heard the “blacked out” call in real time. His recorded
pleas—“Close it. Close it. . . . Close them, the windows, man. Please.”—supported a
powerful inference that he knew what an open door would reveal. J.A. 1251. And the lone
innocent explanation asked the jury to credit a witness caught lying under oath in front of
them, whose implausible story seated him atop a pile of tools and a battery pack. The
evidence “overwhelmingly supported a finding of guilt.” Woods, 710 F.3d at 204. The
challenged statements did not tip this verdict; the evidence did.
1
The government has not argued that the comment was responsive to anything
raised in opening arguments. Cf. Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586, 594–95 (1978).
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Martinez-Chavez responds by arguing that the government’s only evidence of
knowledge—the one contested element—rested on Hylton’s uncorroborated recollection
of the stressful eighteen seconds between his arrival on the scene and his turning on his
body camera. So praising the officers struck at the heart of the case, he argues. But in
proving the knowledge element, the government relied on a myriad of evidence other than
Hylton’s memory: Poulin’s real-time monitoring, the defendant’s own recorded words, the
visible rifle, the console ammunition Vallejos never claimed, and the buried passenger seat
all supported his knowledge. Along with the nature of the remarks, this extensive proof
separates this case from Plymail v. Mirandy, 8 F.4th 308, 317–19 (4th Cir. 2021), where a
pervasive course of vividly improper argument capped a pure credibility contest. Here, the
improper matter was brief and anodyne, the instructions were pointed, and the proof did
not rise or fall with the witnesses the prosecutor praised. The error was harmless.
2. The Liar Remark
Because Martinez-Chavez did not object to the “liar” remark, he must show plain
error: an error, plain, that affected his substantial rights and that seriously affects the
fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. United States v. Olano, 507
U.S. 725, 732–36 (1993); Woods, 710 F.3d at 202.
The “liar” remark leads to the same result under plain-error review. This Court has
said that the government may not refer to a defense witness as a liar. See United States v.
Cooper, 827 F.2d 991, 995 (4th Cir. 1987) (calling defense witnesses “liars” was “quite
improper—although perhaps well-founded”—but not reversible). The government
concedes the first two prongs of plain error, and we accept the concession. But
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Martinez-Chavez cannot show that the remark affected his substantial rights. Olano, 507
U.S. at 734–35.
Before the prosecutor gave his closing argument, Vallejos’s credibility had been
severely undermined. The jury heard him deny meeting the defense team or seeing
photographs of the guns. But it then saw defense counsel correct the record minutes later.
It heard Deputy Alejandro describe Vallejos’s earlier statements that differed on the guns,
their size, and the ride home. It heard Vallejos admit he was smoking crack that night and
had threatened the boss he now blamed: “You don’t know who you’re messing with.” J.A.
1093, J.A. 1123. It saw the photograph of the passenger seat where he claimed to sit.
During closing, even defense counsel labeled him a “clearly addled” “crackhead” who
could neither “remember one question to the next” nor “remember exactly what happened.”
J.A. 1197. A one-word label added nothing beyond what the record reflected. See Lockett,
438 U.S. at 594–95 (“[T]he prosecutor’s closing remarks added nothing to the impression
that had already been created.”). Given the strength of the evidence establishing guilt and
undermining the witness’s credibility, the remark did not affect the outcome. See Woods,
710 F.3d at 204–05.
Nor would affirmance here tarnish the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of
judicial proceedings. The jury convicted on overwhelming proof, and the challenged word
described a witness the jurors themselves saw get caught. Plain-error relief is not
warranted.
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B. The District Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion In Refusing An
Adverse-Inference Instruction
Martinez-Chavez next challenges the district court’s refusal of his adverse-inference
instruction, a decision we review for abuse of discretion. Johnson, 996 F.3d at 217.
Refusing an instruction is reversible only if the instruction “(1) was correct, (2) was not
substantially covered by the charge that the district court actually gave to the jury, and (3)
involved some point so important that the failure to give the instruction seriously impaired
the defendant’s defense.” United States v. Raza, 876 F.3d 604, 614 (4th Cir. 2017).
Martinez-Chavez claims no due-process violation, conceding that the government
acted without bad faith. See Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 57–58 (1988). His claim
rests on Johnson. There, this Court observed that “[e]ven absent a due process violation,
a criminal defendant may be entitled to an adverse inference instruction pursuant to the
spoliation of evidence rule.” 996 F.3d at 206. We explained that the inference requires “a
showing that the party knew the evidence was relevant to some issue at trial and that his
willful conduct resulted in its loss or destruction.” Id. at 217 (quoting Vodusek v. Bayliner
Marine Corp., 71 F.3d 148, 156 (4th Cir. 1995)). Bad faith suffices but is not necessary;
negligence never suffices.
The government casts doubt on whether that passage states a binding rule. Johnson
vacated the district court’s decision on a due-process question for development of the
record; it expressly declined to answer the separate question, “whether the court committed
further error . . . by refusing to instruct the jury that it could draw an adverse inference.”
Id. at 216. What followed was guidance for a contingency: If the due-process claim failed
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again and a retrial occurred, the district court “should assess anew whether the defendants
are entitled to an adverse inference instruction.” Id. at 216–17. Providing a framework for
a ruling is not making the ruling. And a statement that “could have been deleted without
seriously impairing the analytical foundations of the holding” is dictum. Payne v. Taslimi,
998 F.3d 648, 654–55 (4th Cir. 2021) (citation omitted). 2
Martinez-Chavez responds that Johnson’s directions bound the district court on
remand and that it should bind this Court too. We need not resolve that dispute. Even
taking Johnson as the standard, his claim fails on both elements.
Martinez-Chavez first argues that the government “knew the evidence was relevant
to some issue at trial” before losing it. Johnson, 996 F.3d at 217. Relevance under Rule
401 is a low bar, and the district court allowed that the recordings “could provide additional
context” to Hylton’s account. J.A. 750. But Johnson does not view the evidence with the
benefit of hindsight; it asks whether the government knew the evidence mattered to a trial
issue while the evidence still existed. The district court permissibly found no such
showing. The May 1 letter was a general discovery request that specified no recordings.
2
The borrowed standard would be an odd transplant. Vodusek announced an
evidentiary rule for civil spoliation two decades before the Civil Rules answered the same
question for electronically stored information. Since 2015, Rule 37(e)(2) has permitted a
civil adverse-inference instruction for lost electronic information like the recording here
“only upon finding that the party acted with the intent to deprive another party of the
information’s use in the litigation.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(e)(2). Recordings that expire on a
county server are electronically stored information. On Martinez-Chavez’s reading, then,
a criminal defendant would obtain a spoliation instruction on a lesser showing—willfulness
without intent to deprive—than the Civil Rules now demand of civil litigants for the same
category of evidence, and on a lesser showing than due process demands for merely
“potentially useful” evidence. See Youngblood, 488 U.S. at 57–58; Illinois v. Fisher, 540
U.S. 544, 547–48 (2004) (per curiam).
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Only in late October did defense counsel identify the dispatch calls as relevant. And
Martinez-Chavez offers no evidence that the government knew of their relevance before
then. Johnson itself shows the difference: the lost evidence there was the deceased
victim’s cell phone that an investigator knew contained evidence relevant to the disputed
source of the fatal drug. See 996 F.3d at 217.
The Jencks Act does not fill the gap. Martinez-Chavez argues that Hylton’s radio
transmissions were “statements” of a government witness, 18 U.S.C. § 3500(e)(2), which
the government was obliged to preserve and produce—and that this duty supplies both the
knowledge and the willfulness Johnson requires. 3 The argument fails three times over.
First, the Jencks Act applies only to a “statement or report in the possession of the United
States.” § 3500(a). And Martinez-Chavez identifies no evidence that the United States
possessed these recordings, only the local police department. See United States v. Silva,
745 F.2d 840, 845–46 (4th Cir. 1984); Campbell v. United States, 365 U.S. 85, 92–93
(1961). Second, even if the recordings were covered under the Jencks Act, that disclosure
obligation would not itself establish the government’s knowledge of relevance. The Jencks
Act is broader than relevance, reaching every statement of a testifying government witness
that “relates to the subject matter” of his testimony. § 3500(b). And the Jencks Act’s
production duty is keyed to a witness’s eventual testimony. So even if the recordings fell
3
The government observes that Martinez-Chavez never cited the Jencks Act in the
district court. But we need not identify exactly what Martinez-Chavez preserved, because
the argument fails even if considered. See United States v. Diaz, 865 F.3d 168, 174 n.2
(4th Cir. 2017) (not deciding whether a claim was preserved because the outcome would
be the same).
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under the Jencks Act, that would not show that anyone knew that these routine radio calls
bore on an issue that would be contested in court. Third, Johnson asks what the government
knew before the evidence was destroyed. Determining that the Jencks Act applied with
the benefit of legal briefing and hindsight would not establish the government’s knowledge
of the recordings’ relevance before their deletion.
Willfulness fares no better. The recordings were deleted automatically under a
neutral six-month retention policy. Martinez-Chavez provides no evidence that an officer
selected them for destruction, considered a duty to preserve them, or deliberately allowed
them to disappear. When defense counsel first identified their relevance and requested
them, the government acted promptly. Martinez-Chavez has thus failed to show willful
conduct under Johnson. 4 The district court acted within its discretion in refusing to give
an adverse-inference instruction.
* * *
The prosecutor’s improper remarks did not deprive Martinez-Chavez of a fair trial,
and the district court reasonably refused to give an adverse-inference instruction. The
judgment is
AFFIRMED.
4
Martinez-Chavez also suggests that “plain indifference” makes the omission
willful. But Johnson demands “willful” conduct, not negligence or plain indifference. 996
F.3d at 217.
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