Filed: Jan. 25, 2018
Latest Update: Mar. 03, 2020
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 17-4347 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. RODDELL CHAPELL, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Richmond. Henry E. Hudson, District Judge. (3:09-cr-00365-HEH-1) Submitted: December 18, 2017 Decided: January 25, 2018 Before DUNCAN and THACKER, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Ge
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 17-4347 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. RODDELL CHAPELL, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Richmond. Henry E. Hudson, District Judge. (3:09-cr-00365-HEH-1) Submitted: December 18, 2017 Decided: January 25, 2018 Before DUNCAN and THACKER, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit Judge. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. Ger..
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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 17-4347
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
RODDELL CHAPELL,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at
Richmond. Henry E. Hudson, District Judge. (3:09-cr-00365-HEH-1)
Submitted: December 18, 2017 Decided: January 25, 2018
Before DUNCAN and THACKER, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior Circuit
Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Geremy C. Kamens, Federal Public Defender, Frances H. Pratt, Mary E. Maguire, Assistant
Federal Public Defenders, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER,
Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. Dana J. Boente, United States Attorney, Alexandria,
Virginia, Angela Mastandrea-Miller, Assistant United States Attorney, UNITED STATES
ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Roddell Chapell appeals the district court’s judgment revoking his supervised
release and sentencing him to 36 months of imprisonment. On appeal, Chapell argues this
sentence is unreasonable because the district court relied on an erroneous theory of
supervised release and failed to adequately explain the sentence. We affirm.
“A district court has broad discretion when imposing a sentence upon revocation of
supervised release.” United States v. Webb,
738 F.3d 638, 640 (4th Cir. 2013).
“Accordingly, when this Court examines a revocation sentence, we take[ ] a more
deferential appellate posture concerning issues of fact and the exercise of discretion than
reasonableness review for guidelines sentences.” United States v. Slappy,
872 F.3d 202,
207 (4th Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks omitted). Specifically, “[w]e will affirm a
revocation sentence if it is within the statutory maximum and is not ‘plainly
unreasonable.’”
Webb, 738 F.3d at 640 (quoting United States v. Crudup,
461 F.3d 433,
438 (4th Cir. 2006)).
In considering whether a revocation sentence is plainly unreasonable, we must first
decide whether the revocation sentence is procedurally or substantively unreasonable. See
Webb, 738 F.3d at 640. To make this decision, “we follow generally the procedural and
substantive considerations that we employ in our review of original sentences, . . . with
some necessary modifications to take into account the unique nature of supervised release
revocation sentences.”
Crudup, 461 F.3d at 438–39. A revocation sentence is procedurally
reasonable if after considering the Sentencing Guidelines’ Chapter 7 advisory policy
statements and the applicable § 3553(a) factors, the district court adequately explains the
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revocation sentence. See
Slappy, 872 F.3d at 207; see also 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e) (delineating
the applicable § 3553(a) factors); United States v. Thompson,
595 F.3d 544, 546–47 (4th
Cir. 2010) (stating that a district court must consider the non-binding, policy statements in
Chapter 7 of the Sentencing Guidelines Manual). Further, “a revocation sentence is
substantively reasonable if the court ‘sufficiently state[s] a proper basis for its conclusion
that’ the defendant should receive the sentence imposed.”
Slappy, 872 F.3d at 207 (quoting
Crudup, 461 F.3d at 440).
“Only if we find the sentence unreasonable must we decide whether it is plainly so.”
Webb, 738 F.3d at 640. A sentence is plainly unreasonable if it is clearly or obviously
unreasonable. See
Crudup, 461 F.3d at 439. “If a revocation sentence [--] even an
unreasonable one [--] is not ‘plainly unreasonable,’ we will affirm it.”
Slappy, 872 F.3d at
208.
Although the district court did not address every § 3553(a) factor on the record at
sentencing, it adequately explained its reasoning for the revocation sentence—specifically,
that it was sanctioning the serious breach of trust evinced by Chapell’s continuing pattern
of violations. See United States v. Carter,
564 F.3d 325, 329 (4th Cir. 2009) (“[T]he district
court need not robotically tick through § 3553(a)’s every subsection.” (internal quotation
marks omitted)). Chapell contends it was improper for the court to focus on the breach of
trust in imposing a sentence above the advisory policy statement range. But the Sentencing
Guidelines instruct that “at revocation the court should sanction primarily the defendant’s
breach of trust, while taking into account, to a limited degree, the seriousness of the
underlying violation and the criminal history of the violator.” U.S. Sentencing Guidelines
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Manual ch. 7, pt. A cmt. 3(b); see United States v. Wynn,
786 F.3d 339, 343 (4th Cir. 2015)
(“Indeed, the very purpose of a supervised release revocation hearing is to determine the
gravity of the breach of trust committed by the defendant in the context of the conditional
liberty he was granted following his conviction of the underlying offenses.” (internal
quotation marks omitted)). Chapell’s revocation sentence is thus procedurally reasonable.
The district court also stated a sufficient basis for the sentence. The court made
clear that it considered the violations before it as a continuation of the course of conduct
serving as the basis for the first revocation. Moreover, at the first revocation hearing, the
court imposed a sentence below the advisory policy statement range but warned Chapell
that he would face a more severe sentence if he violated his supervised release again.
Accordingly, the sentence is substantively reasonable. Because we conclude that the
revocation sentence is not unreasonable, we need not reach the question of whether it is
plainly unreasonable.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s 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
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