UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 10-4624

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

KENNY JABAR ROANE,

Defendant – Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern

District of Virginia, at Richmond. Richard L. Williams, Senior 

District Judge. (3:03-cr-00257-RLW-1)

Submitted: March 30, 2011 Decided: April 29, 2011

Before MOTZ, GREGORY, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Michael S. Nachmanoff, Federal Public Defender, Valencia 

Roberts, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Caroline S. Platt, 

Research and Writing Attorney, Richmond, Virginia, for 

Appellant. Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney, N. G. 

Metcalf, Assistant United States Attorney, Richmond, Virginia, 

for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Kenny Roane appeals the district court’s order 

revoking his supervised release and sentencing him to fifteen 

months’ imprisonment. On appeal, Roane contends that (1) there 

was insufficient evidence to support the district court’s 

finding that he violated a condition of his supervised release 

by eluding a police officer; and (2) his sentence is plainly 

unreasonable. Finding no reversible error, we affirm. 

We review a district court’s judgment revoking 

supervised release and imposing a term of imprisonment for abuse 

of discretion. United States v. Copley, 978 F.2d 829, 831 (4th 

Cir. 1992). To revoke supervised release, a district court need 

only find a violation of a condition of supervised release by a 

preponderance of the evidence. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3) (2006); 

Copley, 978 F.2d at 831. This burden “simply requires the trier 

of fact to believe that the existence of a fact is more probable 

than its nonexistence.” United States v. Manigan, 592 F.3d 621, 

631 (4th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). A 

defendant challenging the sufficiency of the evidence faces a 

heavy burden. United States v. Beidler, 110 F.3d 1064, 1067 

(4th Cir. 1997). In determining whether the evidence in the 

record is substantial, we view the evidence in the light most 

favorable to the government. United States v. Burgos, 94 F.3d 

849, 862 (4th Cir. 1996) (en banc).
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Under Virginia law, a person is guilty of felony 

eluding a police officer if, 

having received a visible or audible signal from any 

law-enforcement officer to bring his motor vehicle to 

a stop, [he] drives such motor vehicle in a willful 

and wanton disregard of such signal so as to interfere 

with or endanger the operation of the law-enforcement 

vehicle or endanger a person. 

Va. Code Ann. § 46.2-817 (LexisNexis 2010). Here, the evidence 

showed that it was more probable than not that Roane disregarded 

the siren and verbal direction he received from a police officer 

and continued to drive his vehicle so as to endanger another 

police officer stopped on the road. Thus, we conclude that the 

district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that a 

preponderance of the evidence showed that Roane committed a 

felony by eluding a police officer. 

A district court has broad discretion to impose a 

sentence upon revoking a defendant’s supervised release. United 

States v. Thompson, 595 F.3d 544, 547 (4th Cir. 2010). We will 

affirm unless the sentence is “plainly unreasonable” in light of 

the applicable 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2006) factors. United 

States v. Crudup, 461 F.3d 433, 437 (4th Cir. 2006). 

First, we must decide whether the sentence is 

unreasonable, “follow[ing] generally the procedural and 

substantive considerations that we employ in our review of 

original sentences.” Id. at 438. A sentence is procedurally 
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reasonable if the district court has considered the policy 

statements contained in chapter seven of the U.S. Sentencing 

Guidelines Manual (“USSG”) and the applicable § 3553(a) factors 

and has explained adequately the sentence chosen, though it need 

not explain the sentence in as much detail as when imposing the 

original sentence. Crudup, 461 F.3d at 439. A sentence is 

substantively reasonable if the district court states a proper 

basis for its imposition of a sentence up to the statutory 

maximum. Id. at 440. If, after considering the above, the 

appellate court determines that the sentence is not 

unreasonable, it should affirm. Id. at 439.

We hold that the district court’s imposition of a 

fifteen-month term of imprisonment was not unreasonable. 

Procedurally, the district court adequately explained its chosen 

sentence and considered the § 3553(a) factors and USSG chapter 

seven policy statements. Substantively, the district court 

stated a proper basis and sentenced Roane within the statutory 

maximum. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). Because we conclude that 

Roane’s sentence is not unreasonable, we need not consider 

whether it is plainly so.

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s order. We 

dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
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contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the 

court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED