United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit 

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No. 20-3410

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United States of America

 Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Jeffrey Garret Roads

 Defendant - Appellant

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Southern District of Iowa - Central 

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Submitted: September 24, 2021

Filed: November 29, 2021

[Unpublished]

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Before KELLY, ERICKSON, and GRASZ, Circuit Judges. 

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PER CURIAM.

Jeffrey Roads pled guilty to child pornography offenses. Not long after 

changing his plea, Roads sat for a proffer interview. During the interview, Roads 

informed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that another inmate, Justin 

Fletcher, made statements about hiring someone to harm several federal officials, 

including the district judge presiding over Roads’s case. Subsequently, the FBI 
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identified Roads’s attorney, who represented Fletcher in a separate case, as another 

target of Fletcher’s threats. While Roads’s attorney withdrew from representing 

Fletcher in the other case because of the threats, he chose to continue as Roads’s 

counsel. 

Nine days before sentencing, Roads unsuccessfully sought recusal of the 

district judge due to her status as a victim in Fletcher’s case. The district court denied 

the motion on the grounds that it was both untimely and without merit. The court 

granted the government’s motion for a downward departure and sentenced Roads to 

a term of 324 months’ imprisonment.

On appeal, Roads challenges his sentence and the district court’s denial of the 

recusal motion. Given the circumstances as now presented, we take no position on 

those issues.

During oral argument, Roads’s attorney informed us that he intentionally tried 

to limit his involvement in the proffer and that he did not attend the proffer interview. 

He stated that “exact knowledge of what Mr. Roads was going to testify to was 

unknown . . . to myself” until shortly before sentencing. When asked if he had been 

trying to stay away from the interview because he previously represented Fletcher, 

Roads’s attorney responded:

I was. I was trying to avoid any allegation by Mr. Fletcher of saying 

that I was somehow tainting the testimony of Mr. Roads and trying to 

steer or manipulate the proceedings that way. Mr. Fletcher is a very 

dangerous man, a very manipulative man, and I was purposely trying 

to stay away from that.

The remarks made at argument raise concerns that Roads’s attorney operated 

under a conflict of interest. See United States v. Brown, 508 F.2d 427, 430 (8th Cir. 

1974) (explaining that an appellate court may examine sua sponte an issue that 

affects substantial rights in a criminal case). We have recognized that when a district 

court receives notice of a conflict of interest, “the trial court is obliged to conduct an 
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inquiry regardless of the nature of the conflict.” Caban v. United States, 281 F.3d 

778, 783 (8th Cir. 2002) (citing Wood v. Georgia, 450 U.S. 261, 272 n.18 (1981); 

Holloway v. Arkansas, 435 U.S. 475, 489 (1978)). We believe a similar practice is 

appropriate when the possible conflict of interest is discovered on appeal. 

Under these unusual circumstances, we vacate Roads’s sentence and remand 

to the district court for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether any conflict may

have affected Roads’s substantial rights. Considering the nature of the anticipated 

hearing, we recognize that recusal may be warranted. We leave that decision to the 

district court’s discretion as the district court is in a better position than we are to 

perform the proper balancing test. 

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