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United States v. Ronald Lefler
UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 25-4661
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee, v.
RONALD E. LEFLER,
Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at Abingdon. James P. Jones, Senior District Judge. (1:20-cr-00048-JPJ-PMS-1) Submitted: September 24, 2026 Decided: November 2, 2026
Before NIEMEYER and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges, and KEENAN, Senior Circuit Judge.
Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ON BRIEF: Mary E. Maguire, Federal Public Defender, Erin Trodden, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Jonathan Jones, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
Ronald E. Lefler appeals the district court's judgment revoking his supervised release and imposing a 3-month prison term and a 33-month term of supervised release. The district court determined that Lefler had violated the conditions of his supervised release by committing larcenies of a check. On appeal, Lefler argues that the district court erred in revoking his supervised release because the evidence was insufficient to show that he committed the larcenies. He also argues that the district court violated United States v. Rogers, 961 F.3d 291 (4th Cir. 2020), by not orally pronouncing the discretionary special condition of supervised release included in the written judgment requiring that he submit his office to searches by a probation officer. We affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand for resentencing.
"A district court may revoke supervised release if it finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant violated a condition of supervised release." United States v. Mills, 173 F.4th 182, 188 (4th Cir. 2026) (internal quotation marks omitted).
"This standard simply requires the trier of fact to believe that the existence of a fact is more probable than its nonexistence." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). "Our review of a district court's revocation of supervised release is for abuse of discretion, meaning that we review legal conclusions de novo and factual determinations for clear error." Id. "Under clear-error review, our task is to determine whether the district court's account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). "This standard plainly does not entitle a reviewing court to reverse the finding of the trier of fact simply because it is convinced that it would have decided the
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case differently." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). We discern no error in the district court's revocation of Lefler's supervised release based on its finding by a preponderance of the evidence that he committed the larcenies.
We turn, then, to Lefler's claim of error under Rogers. In that decision, this court held that a district court is required to orally pronounce at sentencing all discretionary conditions of supervised release. Rogers, 961 F.3d at 297. This requirement "is a critical part of the defendant's right to be present at sentencing," id. at 300 (internal quotation marks omitted), and ensures that the defendant has an opportunity "to avoid the imposition of unwarranted [supervised release] conditions," id. at 298. We review a claim of Rogers error de novo. United States v. Smith, 117 F.4th 584, 604-05 (4th Cir. 2024). Here, the district court stated at the revocation hearing that Lefler—as a special condition of his supervised release—had to submit to searches conducted by a probation officer of his "person, property, house, residence, vehicle, papers, computers, and other electronic communication or data storage devices or media." J.A. 164.*The written judgment, however, directs that Lefler had to submit his "person, property, house, residence, vehicle, papers, [computers as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 1030(e)(1), other electronic communications or data storage devices or media], or office" to searches conducted by a probation officer. J.A. 192 (emphasis added). The district court did not orally pronounce at the hearing that Lefler had to submit to searches of his office, and we conclude that the written requirement that he do so is inconsistent with the oral * Citations to the "J.A." refer to the joint appendix the parties filed in this appeal.
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pronouncement and constitutes reversible error under Rogers. See United States v. Mathis,
103 F.4th 193, 198 (4th Cir. 2024). We therefore affirm the district court's revocation decision, vacate Lefler's sentence, and remand for resentencing. See United States v. Aborisade, 163 F.4th 856, 866 (4th Cir. 2026) ("[I]t is settled in the Fourth Circuit that when a Rogers error occurs, whether due to a failure to pronounce a discretionary condition or due to a material inconsistency between the oral pronouncement and written judgment, we must vacate and remand for full resentencing.").
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 IN PART,
VACATED IN PART,
AND REMANDED
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