Fourth Circuit: Breach-of-Trust Sanctions Remain Permissible After Esteras

1. Introduction

The central question in this appeal was whether a court revoking supervised release may consider the defendant’s breach of the court’s trust. Andrew Chafin argued that the Supreme Court’s intervening decision in Esteras v. United States, 145 S. Ct. 2031 (2025), had displaced Fourth Circuit precedent permitting that consideration. The Fourth Circuit disagreed.

The resulting rule is a clarification and reaffirmation: a revocation court may sanction a defendant’s breach of supervised-release conditions without impermissibly seeking additional punishment for the original crime of conviction. According to the court, Esteras prohibits the latter but expressly leaves the former question unresolved. Consequently, United States v. Lewis, 90 F.4th 288 (4th Cir. 2024), remains binding within the Fourth Circuit.

Background and parties’ positions

Chafin pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm as a convicted felon under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). He received a below-Guidelines prison sentence followed by supervised release, which began in May 2025. Within several months, he repeatedly violated his supervision conditions by using illegal substances, failing to report or provide drug-testing samples, declining required addiction-recovery activities, and failing to pay his special assessment.

At the revocation hearing, Chafin admitted the violations, acknowledged his addiction, and requested another opportunity on supervision. His counsel ultimately sought time served. The Government requested a significant period of imprisonment and continued supervision.

The district court imposed nine months’ imprisonment, within the applicable advisory range, followed by 21 months of supervised release. Its explanation addressed Chafin’s family support, treatment and training needs, repeated noncompliance, need for deterrence, and violation of the court’s trust.

Chafin challenged the procedural reasonableness of that sentence. He maintained that breach of trust was an unlisted, inherently retributive consideration forbidden by the governing statute after Esteras.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Fourth Circuit rejected Chafin’s argument and affirmed. Its principal conclusions were:

1. Lewis remains controlling. Its authorization of breach-of-trust sanctions is compatible with the holding and reasoning of Esteras.
2. The statutory exclusion concerns retribution for the original conviction. Section 3583(e) omits the sentencing consideration in § 3553(a)(2)(A), which addresses seriousness, respect for law, and just punishment for the original offense.
3. Chapter Seven is incorporated into the statutory framework. Section 3583(e) requires consideration of provisions directing courts to consult applicable Sentencing Commission guidelines and policy statements, including Chapter Seven’s breach-of-trust approach.
4. The seriousness of a violation remains relevant. Courts may evaluate the extent of noncompliance when selecting an appropriate revocation response, without treating revocation as punishment for a new criminal offense.
5. Chafin’s sentence was procedurally reasonable. The district court identified permissible statutory considerations and explained its sentence in relation to his violations, deterrence, and rehabilitation. Chafin conceded that the court did not seek additional punishment for his original firearm offense.

Because the sentence was not unreasonable at the first stage of review, the court had no need to decide whether any error was sufficiently clear or obvious to make it “plainly” unreasonable.

3. The Statutory Framework

Ordinary federal sentencing requires consideration of the factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Section 3553(a)(2) identifies four traditional sentencing purposes:

• Retribution: reflecting the offense’s seriousness, promoting respect for law, and providing just punishment.
• Deterrence: discouraging future wrongdoing.
• Incapacitation: protecting the public from further crimes.
• Rehabilitation: addressing educational, vocational, medical, or other correctional needs.

Revocation operates under a different statutory selection. Section 3583(e) incorporates specified § 3553(a) considerations but omits § 3553(a)(2)(A), the retribution provision. The court therefore cannot use revocation to impose further just punishment for the original offense of conviction.

Importantly, however, § 3583(e) incorporates § 3553(a)(4) and (5), which direct attention to relevant Sentencing Commission guidelines and policy statements. Chapter Seven explains that revocation should principally sanction the defendant’s breach of trust, while considering the seriousness of the violation and the defendant’s criminal history to a limited degree.

Thus, the statutory framework simultaneously excludes one purpose—additional retribution for the original crime—and incorporates a policy framework focused on noncompliance with supervision. The opinion explains why those instructions are not contradictory.

4. Precedents Cited and Their Influence

United States v. Lewis, 90 F.4th 288 (4th Cir. 2024)

Lewis supplied the controlling circuit rule. It rejected arguments that Chapter Seven’s breach-of-trust theory and seriousness-based violation grades impermissibly imported retribution into revocation sentencing.

Its reasoning distinguished three different matters: punishment for the original conviction, punishment for new criminal conduct, and sanctions for violating court-ordered supervision. Chapter Seven addresses the third. Any punishment for a new crime belongs to the proceeding responsible for sentencing that crime.

Lewis also interpreted the statutory discretion to impose “all or part” of an authorized revocation prison term as necessarily allowing courts to assess the relative seriousness of the violation. Chafin raised materially the same objections, so his appeal depended on showing that subsequent Supreme Court authority had displaced this precedent.

Esteras v. United States, 145 S. Ct. 2031 (2025)

Esteras was the intervening Supreme Court decision on which Chafin relied. It held that Congress’s omission of § 3553(a)(2)(A) from § 3583(e) prevents courts from considering retribution for the underlying criminal conviction in revocation decisions.

Two features were decisive here. First, Esteras interpreted “offense” in § 3553(a)(2)(A) as the original crime of conviction, not the supervised-release violation. Second, it expressly took no position on Chapter Seven’s authorization of sanctions for breaches of trust.

The Fourth Circuit therefore treated Esteras as confirming the prohibition already recognized in Lewis, not as rejecting Lewis’s separate holding. The Supreme Court’s reservation is significant: it neither approved nor invalidated breach-of-trust sanctions at the national level.

United States v. Crudup, 461 F.3d 433 (4th Cir. 2006)

Crudup established the review framework: a revocation sentence within the statutory range will be affirmed unless it is plainly unreasonable. The appellate court first assesses reasonableness and proceeds to obviousness only if it identifies an unreasonable sentence.

The opinion also cited Crudup as longstanding recognition that revocation courts cannot consider the excluded retribution factor. This reinforced the conclusion that Esteras did not introduce a principle incompatible with the circuit’s existing framework.

United States v. Walton, 145 F.4th 476 (4th Cir. 2025)

Walton supported both the review standard and the substantive approach to breach of trust. Procedural reasonableness requires an adequate explanation after consideration of Chapter Seven’s nonbinding policy statements and the applicable statutory factors.

It also reiterated Chapter Seven’s priority: principally sanction the breach of trust, while accounting only to a limited degree for the underlying violation’s seriousness and the defendant’s criminal history. This limitation guards against converting revocation into substitute sentencing for new misconduct.

United States v. Moulden, 478 F.3d 652 (4th Cir. 2007)

Quoted through Walton, Moulden supplied the “deferential appellate posture” applicable to revocation sentencing. Deference does not excuse reliance on forbidden considerations, but it informs appellate examination of the district court’s explanation and judgment.

United States v. Williams, 155 F.3d 418 (4th Cir. 1998)

This Fourth Circuit decision states that an intervening Supreme Court ruling must govern when it clearly undermines circuit precedent. It supplied the test for Chafin’s effort to escape Lewis, rather than a substantive rule about supervised release.

United States v. Banks, 29 F.4th 168 (4th Cir. 2022), and Short v. Hartman, 87 F.4th 593 (4th Cir. 2023)

These decisions further supported the principle that a circuit panel need not follow an earlier circuit decision when its holding or reasoning conflicts with subsequent Supreme Court authority. Their importance was methodological: the court examined compatibility in reasoning as well as outcomes. It found neither kind of inconsistency between Lewis and Esteras.

United States v. Haymond, 139 S. Ct. 2369 (2019)

The opinion drew support from Justice Breyer’s concurrence and Justice Alito’s dissent, both of which described supervised-release consequences in breach-of-trust terms. Those statements reinforced the established understanding that violating supervision has significance apart from committing a separately punishable crime.

The source of these statements matters: they were not cited as a majority holding resolving Chapter Seven’s validity under § 3583(e). Their function was corroborative, not dispositive.

United States v. Johnson, 529 U.S. 53 (2000)

Johnson supplied the proposition that supervised release serves rehabilitative ends by assisting a defendant’s transition to community life. The Fourth Circuit used that purpose to explain why trust and compliance are central to supervision, and why assessing violations can inform future-oriented decisions.

United States v. Williams, 169 F.4th 727 (6th Cir. 2026)

This separate, Sixth Circuit decision supported the practical proposition that responding to broken trust may help “set the defendant back on a path to rehabilitation.” It provided persuasive support for connecting breach-of-trust analysis to forward-looking supervision goals. It should not be confused with the 1998 Fourth Circuit decision bearing the same title.

5. Analysis of the Court’s Legal Reasoning

A. An expressly reserved question does not displace circuit precedent

Chafin’s first obstacle was the limited scope of Esteras. That decision resolved whether courts may consider retribution for the original conviction. Lewis resolved whether courts may sanction violations of supervision as breaches of trust.

Because the Supreme Court expressly reserved the latter issue, the holdings did not conflict. Nor did general language about forward-looking sentencing purposes overcome that explicit reservation. The Fourth Circuit read those broader statements in light of the precise issue the Supreme Court decided.

B. An exhaustive statutory list can incorporate a broader policy framework

Chafin emphasized Esteras’s description of § 3583(e)’s factors as exhaustive. Because “breach of trust” does not appear expressly in the statute, he argued that it falls outside the permitted universe.

The court answered through statutory incorporation. Congress expressly directed courts to consider applicable Sentencing Commission materials. Chapter Seven’s breach-of-trust framework therefore enters the analysis through an enumerated statutory consideration; it is not an independently invented sentencing factor.

This reasoning does not mean policy statements can override a statute. Rather, the court found no conflict between Chapter Seven and the statutory prohibition as properly understood: Chapter Seven does not authorize additional retribution for the original crime.

C. The object of the sanction matters

The opinion’s central distinction concerns what the court is responding to:

• Impermissible: imposing additional punishment because the original conviction deserves greater retribution.
• Not Chapter Seven’s function: punishing a new criminal offense through the revocation proceeding.
• Permissible under controlling circuit law: sanctioning failure to comply with conditions imposed as part of the original judgment.

This distinction also explains why noncriminal misconduct—such as missing required meetings or failing to report—can justify revocation. Its significance lies in violating supervision, not necessarily in constituting another crime.

D. Looking at past conduct is not necessarily pursuing retribution

The court rejected the premise that evaluating a completed breach must necessarily serve an unlawful backward-looking purpose. Past noncompliance may help determine what deterrence is needed, whether the public requires protection, and how supervision can support rehabilitation.

That reasoning supplements the statutory distinction. A court can assess how seriously supervision failed without attempting to increase the punishment deserved for the original offense. Nevertheless, the opinion leaves intact Chapter Seven’s warning that violation seriousness should play a limited role within a primarily breach-of-trust framework.

E. The district court’s explanation satisfied the governing standard

The district court expressly recognized that only some § 3553(a) factors applied and identified the permissible considerations. It then connected its sentence to Chafin’s repeated violations, rejection of rehabilitative opportunities, family support, treatment needs, and need for deterrence.

Chafin relied partly on the judge’s reference to “slam[ming] some sense into him.” The opinion placed that remark in the exchange over the Government’s request, which the Government understood as a summary of, and question about, its position. The appellate court did not treat the phrase as independently establishing an unlawful sentencing purpose.

Most importantly, Chafin conceded that the district court had not sought to punish his original firearm offense again. Because his procedural challenge depended entirely on the asserted abrogation of Lewis, the survival of that precedent defeated the appeal.

6. Impact and Limits

For Fourth Circuit courts, the decision preserves a familiar revocation framework after Esteras. Judges may continue to discuss breach of trust and apply Chapter Seven’s violation classifications, provided their reasoning remains consistent with the statutory limits.

For sentencing explanations, the opinion highlights the value of identifying the permissible factors and connecting the defendant’s violations to the selected response. Calling misconduct a “breach of trust” does not, by itself, resolve whether an otherwise improper purpose influenced the sentence.

For defendants, a categorical argument that all breach-of-trust reasoning is forbidden cannot succeed before a Fourth Circuit panel while this precedent controls. Fact-specific challenges remain available where a court actually relies on additional punishment for the original conviction, inadequately explains its decision, or otherwise imposes an unreasonable sentence.

Nationally, the opinion does not settle the question reserved by the Supreme Court. It establishes how the Fourth Circuit understands the interaction between its own precedent and Esteras; it does not transform that reservation into Supreme Court approval.

The decision’s scope is also procedural and issue-specific. It does not approve every possible purpose, duration, or condition of a revocation sentence merely because breach-of-trust language appears in the record.

7. Complex Concepts Simplified

Supervised release

A court-ordered period of community supervision following imprisonment, during which the defendant must comply with specified conditions.

Revocation

The court’s withdrawal of supervised-release status after a violation, potentially resulting in imprisonment and additional supervision within statutory limits.

Breach of trust

Failure to honor the conditions under which the court permitted supervised liberty. The focus is noncompliance with supervision, not simply the commission of another crime.

Retribution

Punishment based on what an offender deserves for past wrongdoing. The prohibited consideration here is additional retribution for the original conviction.

Abrogation

Displacement of an earlier precedent by a later, controlling decision whose holding or reasoning is incompatible with it.

Procedural reasonableness

Whether the sentencing court used the correct legal framework, considered the required matters, and adequately explained its decision.

Plainly unreasonable

The appellate standard applied here: a sentence must first be unreasonable, and that unreasonableness must then be clear or obvious.

Chapter Seven policy statements

Nonbinding Sentencing Commission guidance for violations of probation and supervised release. Courts must consider the applicable guidance, but it does not dictate the outcome.

8. Conclusion

United States v. Andrew Chafin preserves the distinction between sanctioning failed supervision and imposing additional punishment for the original crime. The former remains permissible under Fourth Circuit precedent; the latter is prohibited by § 3583(e) as interpreted in Esteras.

The decision’s broader significance lies in its treatment of precedent and statutory incorporation: an expressly reserved Supreme Court question does not unsettle compatible circuit law, and Congress’s direction to consider Chapter Seven gives breach-of-trust reasoning a statutory foothold. Chafin’s nine-month revocation sentence therefore stood.