United States v. Lavarius Hall

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: March 4, 2025
• Docket: 24-4388
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

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UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 24-4388

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

LAVARIUS RODRIGUEZ HALL,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at Charlotte. Max O. Cogburn, Jr., District Judge. (3:09-cr-00040-MOC-SCR-1)

Submitted: February 26, 2025 Decided: March 4, 2025

Before KING and BERNER, Circuit Judges, and KEENAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ON BRIEF: Eric J. Foster, LAW OFFICE OF RICK FOSTER, Asheville, North Carolina, for Appellant. Dena J. King, United States Attorney, Elizabeth M. Greenough, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee.

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PER CURIAM:

Lavarius Rodriguez Hall appeals the district court’s judgment revoking his term of

supervised release and sentencing him to eight months’ imprisonment to be followed by

six months of supervised release. On appeal, Hall argues that the district court erred in

denying his request to terminate supervised release, which we construe as an argument that

the district court erred in imposing a new six-month term of supervised release upon its

fifth revocation of Hall’s supervised release. Hall additionally argues that the imposition

of another term of supervised release violates his right under the Eighth Amendment to be

free from cruel and unusual punishment. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

“A district court has broad discretion when imposing a sentence upon revocation of

supervised release.” United States v. Patterson, 957 F.3d 426, 436 (4th Cir. 2020). “We

will affirm a revocation sentence if it is within the statutory maximum and is not plainly

unreasonable.” United States v. Slappy, 872 F.3d 202, 207 (4th Cir. 2017) (internal

quotation marks omitted). “To consider whether a revocation sentence is plainly

unreasonable, we first must determine whether the sentence is procedurally or

substantively unreasonable.” Id. But even if a revocation sentence is unreasonable, we

will nevertheless affirm unless it is “plainly so.” Id. at 208 (internal quotation marks

omitted).

A district court imposes a procedurally reasonable revocation sentence by

“considering the Sentencing Guidelines’ nonbinding Chapter Seven policy statements and

the applicable 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors,” “adequately explain[ing] the chosen sentence,”

and “meaningfully respond[ing] to the parties’ nonfrivolous arguments” for a different

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sentence. Id. at 207 (footnote omitted). A court complies with substantive reasonableness

requirements by “sufficiently stat[ing] a proper basis for its conclusion that the defendant

should receive the sentence imposed.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

We have reviewed the record and conclude that Hall’s supervised release sentence

is neither procedurally nor substantively unreasonable. First, the sentence was within the

statutory maximum for Hall’s armed robbery and firearm possession offenses. Second, the

district court adequately explained its chosen sentence and meaningfully responded to

Hall’s sentencing arguments at the revocation hearing. Although Hall contends that the

district court failed to adequately consider the § 3553(a) factors, the court discussed the

factors and thoroughly addressed Hall’s arguments against an additional term of

supervision. The court expressed concerns about Hall’s repeated noncompliance with the

terms of his supervised release and explained why it believed an additional term of

supervision was necessary. The court also acknowledged Hall’s struggles with drug use

but found that some sentence of supervised release was necessary in light of Hall’s repeated

supervision violations and the need to protect the public. Based on the circumstances as a

whole, we conclude that the revocation sentence is neither procedurally nor substantively

unreasonable, much less plainly so.

Hall next argues that, under the circumstances of his case, a six-month term of

supervised release violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual

punishment because such a term is grossly disproportionate to the crime for which it was

imposed. We generally “review an Eighth Amendment proportionality challenge to a

sentence de novo.” United States v. Ross, 72 F.4th 40, 50 (4th Cir. 2023). But because

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Hall did not raise an Eighth Amendment challenge to his sentence in the district court, our

review is for plain error only. See United States v. Miller, 41 F.4th 302, 310 (4th Cir. 2022)

(explaining that unpreserved errors—“constitutional or otherwise—are subject to

deferential plain-error review”).

An argument that a particular sentence is disproportionate to the crime committed

may be raised as an as-applied challenge that the length of a sentence is disproportionate

given the circumstances of the case, or as a categorical challenge asserting that an entire

class of sentences is disproportionate based on the nature of the offense or the

characteristics of the offender. United States v. Cobler, 748 F.3d 570, 575 (4th Cir. 2014).

Where, as here, a party has asserted an as-applied challenge to a particular sentence, the

Supreme Court has outlined a specific proportionality analysis:

[T]he narrow proportionality principle of the Eighth Amendment does not require strict proportionality between crime and sentence, but forbids only extreme sentences that are grossly disproportionate to the crime. Before an appellate court concludes that a sentence is grossly disproportionate based on an as-applied challenge, the court first must determine that a threshold comparison of the gravity of the offense and the severity of the sentence leads to an inference of gross disproportionality.

Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); see also Ross, 72 F.4th at 52 (finding

functional life sentence for offense involving child sexual abuse material not grossly

disproportionate and noting the rarity of cases finding gross disproportionality). Based on

the circumstances present in this case, we conclude that Hall’s six-month sentence of

supervised release is not grossly disproportionate to his supervised release violations and

therefore does not plainly violate the Eighth Amendment. See Ross, 72 F.4th at 51-52.

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Accordingly, we affirm the revocation 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 aide the decisional process.

AFFIRMED