Filed: Feb. 02, 2018
Latest Update: Mar. 03, 2020
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 17-4361 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. OMAR DUPRAZ CRITTINGTON, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Max O. Cogburn, Jr., District Judge. (3:11-cr-00083-MOC-DCK-1) Submitted: January 22, 2018 Decided: February 2, 2018 Before WILKINSON and KEENAN, Circuit Judges, and SHEDD, Senior Circuit Judge. Affirmed in part, vacated
Summary: UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 17-4361 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. OMAR DUPRAZ CRITTINGTON, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Max O. Cogburn, Jr., District Judge. (3:11-cr-00083-MOC-DCK-1) Submitted: January 22, 2018 Decided: February 2, 2018 Before WILKINSON and KEENAN, Circuit Judges, and SHEDD, Senior Circuit Judge. Affirmed in part, vacated ..
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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 17-4361
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
OMAR DUPRAZ CRITTINGTON,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina,
at Charlotte. Max O. Cogburn, Jr., District Judge. (3:11-cr-00083-MOC-DCK-1)
Submitted: January 22, 2018 Decided: February 2, 2018
Before WILKINSON and KEENAN, Circuit Judges, and SHEDD, Senior Circuit Judge.
Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded with instructions by unpublished per
curiam opinion.
Sean P. Vitrano, VITRANO LAW OFFICES, PLLC, Wake Forest, North Carolina, for
Appellant. Jill Westmoreland Rose, United States Attorney, Anthony J. Enright,
Assistant United States Attorney, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, Charlotte,
North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Omar Dupraz Crittington appeals from the district court’s judgment revoking his
supervised release and imposing a 7-month prison term and 1-year term of supervised
release. He contends that his due process rights were violated because the district court
failed to ensure he made a knowing and voluntary admission to violating the terms of his
supervised release and waiver of his rights under Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1 to a revocation
hearing. He also challenges the district court’s imposition of the 1-year term of
supervised release, arguing that the court plainly erred in sentencing him to a supervised
release term that did not account for a 24-month prison term imposed on him following a
prior revocation of his supervised release and the 7-month prison term imposed as part of
his current revocation sentence. For the reasons that follow, we affirm in part, vacate in
part, and remand with instructions.
Because Crittington did not raise any objections in the district court to the
adequacy of its inquiry, our review of his first contention is for plain error.
See Henderson v. United States,
568 U.S. 266, 272-73 (2013) (discussing plain error
review). “A defendant’s supervised release cannot be revoked without a full hearing
unless the defendant knowingly and voluntarily admits to the allegations against [him]
and waives [his revocation hearing] rights under Rule 32.1 of the Federal Rules of
Criminal Procedure.” United States v. Farrell,
393 F.3d 498, 500 (4th Cir. 2005).
A knowing and voluntary waiver of the right to a full revocation hearing may be inferred
from the totality of the circumstances and without a formal colloquy with the defendant.
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Id.; see United States v. Stehl,
665 F.2d 58, 59-60 (4th Cir. 1981) (holding that Fed. R.
Crim. P. 11 “has no application to [supervised release] revocation proceedings”).
After a thorough review of the record and the parties’ briefs, we conclude that the
totality of the circumstances establishes that Crittington’s admission to violating the
terms of his supervised release and waiver of his rights to a full revocation hearing were
knowingly and voluntarily made. We therefore discern no plain error by the district
court.
We also review for plain error Crittington’s challenge to the district court’s
imposition of the 1-year term of supervised release. United States v. Maxwell,
285 F.3d
336, 338 (4th Cir. 2002). The relevant statute-18 U.S.C. § 3583(h) (2012)-provides that,
when a district court revokes a defendant’s term of supervised release and imposes a term
of imprisonment, it may require the defendant to serve an additional term of supervised
release. “The length of such a term,” however, “shall not exceed the term of supervised
release authorized by statute for the offense that resulted in the original term of
supervised release, less any term of imprisonment that was imposed upon revocation of
supervised release.”
Id. “[T]he plain meaning of the phrase ‘less any term of
imprisonment that was imposed upon revocation of supervised release’ . . . is that the
prison term in the current revocation sentence, together with all prison time imposed
under any prior revocation sentence or sentences, must be aggregated.”
Maxwell,
285 F.3d at 341.
Here, the maximum term of supervised release authorized for Crittington’s
conviction for the underlying felony of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon is 3
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years. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2), 3559(a)(3), 3583(b)(2) (2012). Crittington
received a 24-month prison term after his initial revocation of supervised release and a
7-month prison term in his current revocation sentence, for a total of 31 months. Section
3583(h), therefore, authorized Crittington to receive a supervised release sentence of no
longer than 5 months.
Crittington’s 1-year term of supervised release exceeds the applicable statutory
maximum by 7 months. Our precedent establishes that imposition of this sentence
amounts to a plain error warranting correction when challenged for the first time on
appeal.
Maxwell, 285 F.3d at 341-43. Crittington has not argued that the district court’s
error in imposing a supervised release term requires resentencing. We therefore conclude
that the most appropriate remedy is to vacate this portion of the revocation judgment and
remand to the district court for the limited purpose of reducing Crittington’s term of
supervised release to 5 months. See United States v. Zoran,
682 F.3d 1060, 1065 n.7
(8th Cir. 2012).
Accordingly, we affirm the revocation judgment in part, vacate in part, and
remand to the district court with instructions to reduce Crittington’s term of supervised
release to 5 months. We grant Crittington’s motion to expedite the decision and 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. The
clerk’s office is directed to issue the mandate forthwith.
AFFIRMED IN PART,
VACATED IN PART, AND REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS
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