Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-19-04520/USCOURTS-ca4-19-04520-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Derick Namack
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 19-4520

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

 Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

DERICK NAMACK,

 Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, at 

Wheeling. Frederick P. Stamp, Jr., Senior District Judge. (5:14-cr-00008-FPS-JPM-4)

Submitted: January 23, 2020 Decided: February 11, 2020

Before WILKINSON, AGEE, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Diana Stavroulakis, Weirton, West Virginia, for Appellant. Lynette Danae 

DeMasi-Lemon, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES 

ATTORNEY, Wheeling, West Virginia, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Derick Namack appeals from the revocation of his supervised release and the 

resulting 12-month and 1-day sentence. Namack’s counsel filed a brief pursuant to Anders 

v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), stating that there are no meritorious grounds for appeal, 

but questioning whether Namack’s sentence is reasonable. For the reasons that follow, we 

affirm the revocation of supervised release and the resulting sentence. 

We review the district court’s revocation of supervised release for abuse of 

discretion and the court’s factual determinations underlying the conclusion that a violation 

occurred for clear error. United States v. Padgett, 788 F.3d 370, 373 (4th Cir. 2015). We 

will only reverse for clear error if “left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake 

was made.” United States v. De Leon-Ramirez, 925 F.3d 177, 183 (4th Cir. 2019) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). To revoke supervised release, a district court need only find a 

violation of a supervised release condition by a preponderance of the evidence. 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3583(e)(3) (2018).

We have reviewed the record and conclude that the district court did not abuse its 

discretion in revoking Namack’s supervised release. Namack admitted to several 

supervised release violations and both Namack and the Government stipulated to the 

factual allegations underlying those violations at the revocation hearing. We conclude that 

the district court’s factual findings are not clearly erroneous and that the district court did 

not abuse its discretion in revoking Namack’s supervised release, after finding by a 

preponderance of the evidence that Namack knowingly violated his supervised release 

conditions. 

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We next turn to Namack’s sentence. “A district court has broad, though not 

unlimited, discretion in fashioning a sentence upon revocation of a defendant’s term of 

supervised release.” United States v. Slappy, 872 F.3d 202, 206 (4th Cir. 2017). 

Accordingly, this court “will affirm a revocation sentence if it is within the statutory 

maximum and is not plainly unreasonable.” Id. at 207 (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. In 

doing so, we generally apply “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.” Id. (alteration and 

internal quotation marks omitted). Only when we conclude that the revocation sentence is 

procedurally or substantively unreasonable must we consider whether it is plainly so. Id.

at 208.

Because Namack did not raise any objection to his sentence in the district court, this 

court’s review is only for plain error. United States v. Webb, 738 F.3d 638, 640 (4th Cir. 

2013). To establish plain error, Namack “must show (1) that the district court erred, (2) that 

the error is clear or obvious, and (3) that the error affected his substantial rights.” Id. In 

the sentencing context, a defendant can establish the third factor by showing “that he would 

have received a lower sentence had the error not occurred.” United States v. Knight, 606 

F.3d 171, 178 (4th Cir. 2010).

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Although the district court erred in failing to provide Namack an opportunity to 

allocute at the revocation hearing, Namack has not established that he would have received 

a lower sentence had he been permitted to allocute. Both parties had reached an agreement 

as to the appropriate sentence. Namack has not shown that he “may have been able to 

persuade the court” to reduce his sentence below the term of imprisonment he had agreed 

to. United States v. Muhammad, 478 F.3d 247, 249 (4th Cir. 2007). Therefore, Namack 

has failed to establish plain error. 

Accordingly, we affirm the revocation of supervised release and the resulting

sentence. 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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