[ PUBLISH] 

## In the 

# United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________
No. 22

- 10742

____________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff

- Appellee,

versus HENRY MARTIN STEIGER, a.k.a. Henry Matthew Steiger, a.k.a. H M Steiger, a.k.a. Robert Woods,

Defendant

- Appellant.

____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 1 of 232 Opinion of the Court 22

- 10742

D.C. Docket No. 3:17

- cr

- 00043

- RV

- 2

____________________ Before W ILLIAM P RYOR , Chief Judge, and W ILSON , J ORDAN , R OSENBAUM , J ILL P RYOR , N EWSOM , B RANCH , G RANT , L UCK , L AGOA , B RASHER , and A BUDU , Circuit Judge s.
B RASHER , Circuit Judge : While on federal probation, Henry Steiger was convicted in state court of murder ing the mother of his infant child on the baby’s first birthday. The government moved to revoke Steiger’s probation for committing this new offense , and the district court agreed. After revoking Steiger’s probation, t h e district court imposed a modified sentence well above Steiger’s advisory guidelines range

— the statutory maximum of twenty years’ imprisonment to
run concurrent ly with the state court ’s murder sentence. The district court did not explain why it chose that sentence, and Steiger did not object to the lack of explanation.Steiger argues that we should vacate his sentence and remand for the district court to explain why it chose twenty years. The law requires a district court to state in open court its reason s for choosing a particular sentence , s ee 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c), a nd a ll parties agree the district court failed to do that here. W e have adopted a “per se rule of reversal” that requires us to vacate any sentence imposed without a n explanation. United States v. Parks
, 823 F.3d 990, 997 (11th Cir. 2016) ; s ee also United States v. Bonilla
, 463 F.3d 1176 , 1181 (11th Cir. 2006); United States v. Williams , 438 USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 2 of 2322

- 10742 Opinion of the Court 3

F.3d 1272 , 1274 (11th Cir. 2006). Under those precedents, Steiger’s failure to object is irrelevant. We took this appeal en banc to answer two questions . First, we asked whether we should overrule our precedents that impose the “per se rule of reversal” and, instead, review unpreserved Section 3553 (c) objections for plain error. We conclude that weshould. Our court stands alone in imposing a “per se rule of reversal
, ” but there is nothing special about S ection 3553 (c) errors that justifies this different standard of review. Second, we asked whether the district court in fact committ ed a plain error when it sentenced Steiger. We conclude it did not. We hold that, when thesentencing record makes clear a district court’s reasons for imposing a particular sentence, a district court’s failure to explain its reasons for the chosen sentenc e does not affect the defendant’s substantial rights. I t is abundantly clear on this record that the district court sentenced Steiger to the statutory maximum because of the nature of the unusually egregious state

- law offense he committed on probation
, so there is no plain error.
In addition to this S ection 3553(c) error, Steiger argues thatthe district court committed procedural errors in arriving at his sentence and that a twenty

- year sentence is substantively unreasonable

. W e remand to the panel to c onsider Steiger’s additional argument s

. I. Henry Steiger pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud

. Due to some USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 3 of 234 Opinion of the Court 22

- 10742 legal technicalities not relevant here, Steiger’s recommended custodial sentence under the Uni ted States Sentencing Guidelines was only zero to six months’ imprisonment

. The district court did not impose any prison time, but it did sentence Steiger to three years’ probation

. A sentence of probation necessarily implies trust that the defendant will not reoffend while serving the sentence. See U.S.S.G. Ch. 7, pt. A, § 3(b)

. Steiger breached that trust a mere t wo months into his probation , and he did so in a most egregious way

— by committing second

- degree murder. After a Florida state jury convicted Steiger of that crime, the district court held a hearing to revoke Steiger’s probation and to resentence him on the federal conspiracy and wire fraud offenses

. The hearing was dedicated almost exclusively to a discussio n of Steiger’s heinous conduct underlying his second

- degree murder conviction . The district court heard evidence that Steiger strangled to death the mother of his infant daughter

— on the baby’s first birthday and while the baby was in her mother’s arms

. Ste iger then hid the woman’s body in a 55

- gallon barrel and stowed the barrel in a trailer. When interviewed by law enforcement about the woman’s disappearance, Steiger disclaimed knowledge of her whereabouts. Eventually
, police discovered the woman’s body. S teiger admits to hiding th e body and lying about it to law enforcement, but he maintain s that he did not commit murder . As Steiger tells it, he found the woman dead and thought she committed suicide. He says he thought the woman’s death would cause him to lose custody of his daughter, so he frantically tried to “cover [his] tracks ,” which made him look “ like a guilty person.” USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 4 of 2322

- 10742 Opinion of the Court 5 The district court rejected Steiger’ s claim of factual innocence. T he district court instead found by a preponderance of the evidence what the Florida state jury had already found beyond a reasonable doubt

— Steiger murdered the mother of his infant daughter. Cf. United States v. Watts , 519 U. S. 148, 156 (1997). Accordingly, the district court ruled that Steiger “violated the termsand conditions of [his] probation” by committing the state law offense of second

- degree murder and revoked Steiger’s probation. Having found that Steiger committed s econd

- degree murder in violation of the terms of his probation, the district court imposed a new sentence for Steiger’s federal conspiracy and wire fraud convictions. See 18 U.S.C. § 3565(a)(2). The government argued that a guidelines sentence of twelve to eighteen months ’ imprisonment, see U.S.S.G. § 7B1

. 4, would “greatly understate [] the seriousness” of Steiger’s commission of “arguably .

. . the most egregious of offenses while on probation,” and emphasized the district court’s ability to senten ce up to twenty years’ imprisonment per count , s ee 18 U.S.C. § 1343

. Steiger requested that he be sentenced to time served

. When imposing its sentence, the district court began by explaining that it had “carefully considered all the evidence presented,” St eiger’s allocution, and “all of the factors set out in [18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)], as well as the applicable guidelines and policy statements” and relevant judicial precedents. The district court then sentenced Steiger “to be imprisoned for a term of 20 years o n each count
, . . . to be served concurrently” with each other and the life sentence imposed by Florida in the second

- degree murder case. USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 5 of 236 Opinion of the Court 22

- 10742 The district court never explicitly said that it was imposing a twenty

- year sentence because Steiger committed a viole nt crime in a heinous manner. But there’s no doubt everyone was on the same page . Immediately after imposing its sentence, the district court asked if Steiger had “any objections to any of [the court’s] findings or conclusions of law or anything that need[ ed] to be amplified on the record with regard to the sentence [the court] imposed.” Steiger said no. Steiger appealed, arguing that his sentence is an excessively harsh upward variance and that the district court did not take the steps necessary to calculate a n adequate sentence. The three

- judge panel assigned to the case could not reach th os e issue s , however

. Under our precedent, any Section 3553(c) error required automatic reversal. See United States v. Steiger , 83 F.4th 932, 936

– 38 (11th Cir.)
, va cated and reh’g en banc granted , 86 F.4th 1337 (11th Cir. 2023 ) . So the district court’s omission of a n express explanation of its reasoning halted the appeal

. See id. Neither the absence of a contemporaneous objection nor the presence of a record that oth erwise made clear the basis of the sentence mattered. T he panel had no choice but to reverse and remand so the district court could formally supplement the record with information everyone already knew: Steiger received a long sentence because he c ommitted murder

. Concurring with the Steiger panel’s application of our precedent s , Chief Judge Pryor lamented the incoherence and inconsistency of our “ per se rule of reversal ” for Section 3553(c) errors. Steiger , 83 F.4th at 938

– 40 (Pryor, C.J., concurring)

. In any other USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 6 of 2322

- 10742 Opinion of the Court 7

context and in every other circuit to have addressed the issue
, an appellate court would review the record only for plain error. See id

. (Pryor, C.J., concurring). We voted to take the case en banc and asked the pa rties to brief two questions. First, we asked whether we should overrule in part our cases creating the per se rule of reversal for Section 3553(c) errors and hold that plain error review applies. Second, we asked whether, if plain error review does apply, the district court committed plain error here.
II. Criminal defendants in federal court have the right to know the reason for their sentence so they can understand the process and challenge their sentence on appeal. To ensure that a defendant has that inform ation, the law requires that a district court “ state inopen court the reasons for its imposition of the particular sentence

. ” 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c). If the district court imposes a sentence within the range recommended by the United States Sentencing Guidelines, “and that range exceeds 24 months,” then the districtcourt must explain “the reason for imposing a sentence at [the] particular point ” that the court chose “ within that r ange

. ” Id. § 3553(c)(1). If the district court imposes a sentence outside the guidelines range, then the district court must state orally during thesentencing hearing “the specific reason for the imposition of a sentence different from” the guidelines ran ge. Id. § 3553(c)(2). The district court must also “state[] with specificity” those reasons “in a [written] statement of reasons.” Id. USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 7 of 238 Opinion of the Court 22

- 10742 The district court’s obligation under Section 3553(c) is to “adequately explain the chosen sentence to allow for meaningf ul appellate review.” Gall v. United States , 552 U.S. 38, 50 (2007)

. The adequacy of an explanation necessarily depends “upon the circumstances of the particular case.” Chavez

- Me z a v. United States , 585 U.S. 109, 116 (2018)

. In “conceptually simple ” cases in which “the record makes clear that the sentencing judge considered the evidence and arguments,” a district court’s statement that a within

- guidelines sentence is “appropriate” can be sufficient. Rita v. United States , 5 5 1 U.S. 338, 3 5 8

– 5 9 (20 07 ). But “major departure [ s ] ” from the guidelines range require that a district court identify a “more significant justification” at the hearing and on the written “statement of reasons form” created by the Sentencing Commission. See Gall , 552 U.S. at 50 ; 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c)(2)

. Although it is n’t onerous to comply with Section 3553(c)
, the district court here said nothing to explain its sentence. T he district court imposed a sentence above the sentencing guidelines range but said nothing about why it was varying up ward. On the other hand, Steiger did not object to the district court’s lack of explanation. The district court expressly asked him whether he needed any clarification , and, through counsel, he said no

. Thus, we are left with our two questions: (1) Should we automatically vacate Steiger’s sentence for this unobjected

- to error or apply customary plain error review? (2) If we review for plain error, i s there any reason to believe that the district court’s e rror affected Steiger’ssubstantial rights or undermined the fairness of the sentencing process? USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 8 of 2322

- 10742 Opinion of the Court 9

A. We begin by holding that an unobjected

- to Section 3553(c) error warrants review for plain error only. In doing so, we overrule in part our cases that establi shed the per se rule of reversal. Two general rules frame the issue here. The first is that we don’t reverse based on errors (even preserved ones) that are harmless

— that is, if they didn’t affect the outcome of the proceeding. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(a); U nited States v. Daniels , 91 F.4th 1083, 1095 (11th Cir. 2024)

. The second is that we won’t reverse for any

error (even an outcome

- changing one) when the party claiming error did not object below unless the error is “plain”

— meaning that it is obvious and it affect ed substantial rights

— and it undermined the fairness of the proceeding

. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b); Puckett v. United States , 556 U.S. 129, 134

– 35 (2009).
We recognized a Section 3553(c) exception to these background rules in United States v. Williams

. In Williams , the district

court violated Section 3553(c)(1) when it imposed a sentence within a guidelines range that exceeded twenty

- four months without explaining why it picked a particular point within that range

. 438 F.3d at 1274. Despite the defendant’s failure to object, t he Williams panel “reject [ed] the government’s argument that this error [was] subject only to plain error review.” Id

. ; see also Bonilla , 463 F.3d at 1181 n.3

. The Williams panel instead applied de novo review, creating wha t we later came to describe as a “per se rule of reversal

. ” Parks , 823 F.3d at 997

. That rule was later extended from Section 3553(c)(1) to Section 3 553(c)(2) and, until today, has mandated USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 9 of 2310 Opinion of the Court 22

- 10742

automatic reversal any time a district court does not explicitly lay out the logic behind its sentence. See id. at 995

– 97 & n .31. No other circuit has followed Williams

. The Second and Seventh Circuits have held that a contemporaneous objection is necessary to preserve a Section 3553(c) issue. See United States v. Villafuerte , 502 F.3d 204, 211 (2d Cir. 2007) ; United States v. Burns , 128 F.3d 553, 556 (7th Cir. 1997) . The Fourth Circuit has reasoned that plain error review is all but mandated by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52 and Supreme Co urt precedent. See United States v. Lynn , 592 F.3d 572, 575

– 77 (4th Cir. 2010)

. The First, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, Te nth, and D.C. Circuits apply plain error to unpreserved Section 3553(c) errors without much ado. See United States v. Gilman , 478 F.3d 440, 447 (1st Cir. 2007) ; United States v. Merlino , 349 F.3d 144, 161 (3d Cir. 2003) ; United States v. Izaguirre

Losoya , 219 F.3d 437, 440

– 41 (5th Cir. 2000) ; United States v. Eversole
, 487 F.3d 1024, 1035 (6th Cir. 2007) ; United States v. Evans , 272 F.3d 1069, 1089 (8th Cir. 2001) ; United States v. Vences , 169 F.3d 611, 613 (9th Cir. 1999) ; United States v . Romero , 491 F.3d 1173, 1177

– 78 (10th Cir. 2007) ; United States v. Ransom , 756 F.3d 770, 773 (D.C. Cir. 2014)

. We are likewise convince d that Williams was wrong. In departing from the plain error standard, the Williams panel felt itself bound by United S tates v. Parrado , 911 F.2d 1567 (11th Cir. 1990), and United States v. Veteto , 920 F. 2 d 823 (11 th Cir. 1991) . But those precedents do not require that result

. USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 10 of 2322

- 10742 Opinion of the Court 11

For starters, n either precedent addressed the standard of review for unobjected

- to Section 3553( c) errors. See Veteto , 920 F.2d
at 82 6 ; Parrado , 911 F.2d at 1572

– 73. In Veteto , the defendant objected; he didn’t understand why he received such a long sentence, so he asked for clarification. 920 F.2d at 824. The district court expressly refused to explain itself. Id. We understandably remanded for clarification. See id. at 826

– 27. In Parrado , the district court likewise provided no summary of reasons a t the end of the hearing. See 911 F.2d at 1570. But there was no discussion in Parrado about whether the defendant objected, and there was no discussion about the standard of review that would apply to unpreserved errors.
If anything, the result in Parrado suggests that we implicitly rejected an automatic reversal rule

— because we affirmed

. Instead of reversing based on the district court’s lack of explanation alone
, the panel in Parrado searched the record for some evidence that the district court’s error h ad affected the defendant’s ability to understand his sentence. In particular, the panel asked whether the district court’s reasoning was evident , even though it had failed to explain itself

. Then
, because the panel held that t he record was sufficiently cl ear, it reasoned that reversal was unwarranted. See id. at 1573

. Obviously, neither precedent mandates reversal for all Section 3553(c) errors. Williams therefore not only broke the general rule of plain error review by forgiving a defendant’s failure to object , but Williams also put itself in tension with the precedents it relied on for that rule

. USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 11 of 2312 Opinion of the Court 22

- 10742
Other justifications for the Williams rule fare no better. The Parks panel, engaging in its duty to reconcile conflictin g cases , posited that the Williams rule is justifiable because a Section 3553(c)

error can be identified “on a silent record

. ” Parks , 823 F.3d a t 995

– 96 . That is, Section 3553(c) requires a statement of reasons; any sentence imposed without such a statement is clearly unlawful ; and

so , a contemporaneous objection is unnecessary to develop the record for appellate review. See id

. Tha t justification falls flat for at least two reasons. First, it prizes record development at the expense of the timely objection rule’s other aims that are fully applicable in the Section 3553(c) context

— “foster[ing] finality of judgment [ s ] and deter[ring] ‘sandbagging,’” United States v. Pielago , 135 F.3d 703, 709 (11th Cir. 1998), and giving the district court the chanc e to “correct or avoid the mistake so that it cannot possibly affect the ultimate outcome,” Puckett , 556 U.S. at 134. Second, the Parks justification creates even

more tension with our precedents . We regularly review for plain error even if the record woul d not have benefited from a contemporaneous objection

. See Steiger , 83 F.4th at 940 (Pryor, C.J., concurring) (noting that plain error review applies to challenges under Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(3)(B) and to challenges that a district court failed to articul ate reasons supporting its decision to seal an order). That an error may be obvious on a silent record does not answer whether we should reverse because of that error

— even when a defendant has preserved an objection, we still ask whether the error was harm less before we reverse

. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(a)

. USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 12 of 2322

- 10742 Opinion of the Court 13 Finally, there is no reason to conclude that a Section 3553(c)

error is one of the rare “ structural errors ” that requires us to “revers[e] without regard to the mistake’s effect on the proceeding

. ” United States v. Dominguez Benitez , 542 U.S. 74, 81 (2004). The “defining feature of a structural error is that it affects the framework within which” the proceeding occurs
, as opposed to an error that

occurs within a structurally sound procee ding. Weaver v. Massachusetts , 582 U.S. 286, 295 (2017) (cleaned up)

. For example , a district court’s failure to adequately instruct a jury on reasonable doubt is a structural defect becaus e that trial becomes incapable of producing a constitutional verdic t

. See Sullivan v. Louisiana , 508 U.S. 275,
277

– 82 (1993). B ut a district court’s failure to adequately instruct the jury on an element of a charged crime is not structural because it remains possible for us to assess the guilty verdict based on the eviden ce

. See Neder v. United States , 527 U.S. 1, 8

– 1 5 (1999)

. A district court’s failure to explain the reason for a sentence is not structural. The federal sentencing framework requires that district courts resolve factual disputes, calculate the guidelines range, consider the Section 3553(a) factors, impose a reasonablesentence, and adequately explain the basis for the sentence imposed. If a district court makes a m istake while performing one of those funct ions , it has erred within the context of a structurally sound sentencing proceeding

. United States v. Perez , 86 F.4th 1311,
1319

– 20 (11th Cir. 2023)
, cert. denied 2024 WL 1143718 (U.S. Mar. 18, 2024)

. If the defendant timely object s , we review for harmless

error . I f not, then plain error applies. USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 13 of 2314 Opinion of the Court 22

- 10742
In short, t here’s simply no basis to depart from the general rule of plain error review for unobjected

- to errors. We therefore hold that an unobjected

- to Section 3553(c) error warrants only plain error review. To the extent Williams or any of its progeny

— including Bonilla and Parks

— conflict s with our decision today, those precedents are overruled.
B.

W e must now decide whether the district court committed plain error by failing to “state in open court .

. . the sp ecific reason for the imposition of a sentence” outside the guidelines range or file a written statement of reasons

. 18 U.S.C. 3553(c)(2). The plain

error test has four elements. An appellate court must find that (1) the district court committed an error ; (2) the error was “plain ” ; and (3) the erro r “affect [ ed ] a substantial right.” United States v. Caldwell
, 81 F.4th 1160, 1175 (11th Cir. 2023)
, cert. denied sub nom. Clayton v. United States
, 144 S. Ct. 870 (2024) (citation omitted)

. If all three conditions are met, then an appellate court has discretion to correct the forfeited error if it (4) “seriously affect[ed] the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings

. ” Johnson v. United States , 520 U.S. 461, 466

– 67 (1 997). The government does not dispute that Steiger satisfies the first and second elements

. We agree. The district court erred whenit did not state in open court the specific basis of its upward variance or file a written statement of reasons

. 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c)( 2)

. A nd its obligation to make such explanation s is clear from the “explicit language of [the] statute. ” United States v. Bankston , 945 F.3d USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 14 of 2322

- 10742 Opinion of the Court 15

1316, 1318 (11th Cir. 2019 ) (citation omitted)

. The parties disagree about the third and fourth elements, however. So that is where we

turn. For the third element of plain error, Steiger must establish that the district court’s Section 3553(c) error “affect [ ed ] a substantial right.” Caldwell , 81 F.4th at 1175

. A district court’s compliance with Section 3553(c) ensure s that the defendant understands his sentence, and it creates a record of the district court’s reasoning

.Both aims implicate a defendant’s ability to make an informed decision of whether to appeal an d, if he does appeal, his ability to meaningfully attack the legality of the sentence. M any of our sister circuits have held, therefore, that the substantial right at issue in a Section 3553(c) challenge is the right to meaningful appellate review of a sen tence. See United States v. Lewis , 424 F.3d 239, 247 (2d Cir. 2005) ; United States v. Gore , 298 F.3d 322, 325

– 26 (5th Cir. 2002) ; United States v. Blackie , 548 F.3d 395, 402

– 03 (6th Cir. 2008) ; United States v. Brown , 892 F.3d 385, 405 (D.C. Cir. 2018) . We agree . The primary reason Section 3553(c) requires an oral and written statement is so that a defendant can meaningful ly appeal the sentence

. See Gall , 552 U.S. at 50

. Accordingly, a Section 3553(c) error does not affect a defendant’s substantial right s if the record is clear enough to allow meaningful appellate review of the sentence

. Section 3553(c)’s role in the sentencing process also informs Steiger’s burden for the fourth element

—whether “the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Caldwell , 81 F.4th at 1175 (citation omitted). Section USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 15 of 2316 Opinion of the Court 22

- 10742 3553(c) enables district courts imposing sentences to “treat like cases alike.” Parrado , 911 F.2d at 1572. It gives “information to criminal ju stice researchers” and aids “the Sentencing Commission inits continuous reexamination of its guidelines and policy statements.” Veteto , 920 F.2d at 826 n.3 (citation omitted). And Section 3553(c) explanations inform the public of the reasons justifying

cr iminal sentences. See Parks , 823 F.3d at 997 & n.30. All of these purposes are satisfied if the record is clear about a district court’s reasons for imposing a sentence, even if it did not make the express statements that Section 3553(c) requires. Putting everything together, the third and fourth elements of plain error rise and fall , in this context, based on one thing: theclarity of the record. An ambiguous record could prevent a defendant from understanding his punishment, impede appellate review, and u ndermine public confidence by making a sentence appear secretive and arbitrary. But if the basis of the sentence is clear on the face of the record, then the defendant is not left out of the loop, appellate courts can effectively review the legality of the sentence, district judges can use the sentence as a comparator, and the public won’t be left to guess why the defendant received the sentence he did. Accordingly, we hold that a Section 3553(c) error warrants reversal under plain error review only when th e district court’s reasoning is unclear on the face of the record

. See Dominguez Benitez , 542 U.S. at 82; see also United States v. Guzman , 603 F.3d 99, 110 (1st Cir

. 2010); Gore , 298 F.3d at 325

– 26; Vences , 169 F.3d at 613

. USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 16 of 2322

- 10742 Opinion of the Court 17The government disagrees that a defendant in Steiger’s position can establish plain error if the district court’s reasons for a sentence are ambiguous. Instead, t he government argues that a defendant in Steiger’s position must establish that he would have been sentenced to a lower sentence but for the Section 3553(c) error. The government’s argument is unpersuasive for two reasons. First, the government focuses on the wrong outcome. We often describe an appellant’s burden under plain error review as establ ishing that the “ outcome ” of the judicial proceeding would have changed

. S ee Daniels , 91 F.4th at 1095

. But w e define t he “outcome” that must have been affected by considering the nature of the rule violated by the district court and the role that rule plays in the judicial process. For example, when a defendant says his guilty plea w as unknowing or involuntary in violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11 , our focus un der plain error review is on the “effect of Rule 11 error on the defendant’s decision to plead,” not on whether the defendant would have otherwise avoided a guilty verdict. Dominguez Benitez , 542 U.S. at 84. Here, S ection 3553(c) is directed at the “outcom e” of whether there is a record for appeal
, not on the outcome of the sentencing proceeding in the district

court. Second, Section 3553(c) is unusual in that it is not a rule that guides a legal decisionmaker to a particular result

— it is a rule that a deci sionmaker must comply with after reaching a result. To be

sure , on plain error review, we usually expect an appellant to prove that a better overall result

— i.e., a not

- guilty verdict or a lesser USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 17 of 2318 Opinion of the Court 22

- 10742

sentence

— would have occurred without an error

. But that is because most cases implicate rules that facilitate the overall result of

a proceeding. For example, when the proceeding is sentencing, we ask whether the sentence would be different but for erroneous sentencing enhancements or an inaccurate sentencing guidelines range

. Se e, e.g. , United States v. Malone , 51 F.4th 1311, 1319 (11th Cir. 2022) ; United States v. Jones , 743 F.3d 826, 829

– 30 (11th Cir. 2014)

. But Section 3553(c) is different. It do esn’t guide a district court’s sentencing discretion; it becomes relevant only after the district court has exercised that discretion and made its decision

. It makes

no sense t o apply a change

- of

- result test to a post

- result error

. For his part, Steiger a rgues that this framework for evaluating plain error reads the word “specific” out of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c)(2). His point is that Section 3553(c)(1) requires only a statement of “the reason” behind a guidelines sentence; Section 3553(c)(2), on the other hand , demands an explanation of “the specific reason” (emphasis added) underlying any non

- guidelines sentence. But Steiger’s argument is beside the point. The difference in specificity between Section 3553(c)(1) and Section 3553(c)(2) goes to whether the district court violated Section 3553(c) in the first place, not whether the violation affected a defendant’s substantialrights or undermined public confidence. Said differently, a defendant’s substantial right s do not vary b etween Section 3553(c)(1) and Section 3553 (c)(2). Nor does the public’s confidence in the fairness and integrity in the proceedings. If someone with knowledge of the sentencing record can understand the reasons for the sentence USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 18 of 2322

- 10742 Opinion of the Court 19 imposed, then a district cou rt’s technical violation does not warrant reversal under plain error review

. Applying that view of plain error review here
, we cannot say the district court plainly err ed . A reasonable person familiar with the sentencing record would understand that Steig er received a n above

- guidelines sentence because , while he was out on probation, he brutally murdered the mother of his infant daughter, hid her body, and then lied to law enforcement about it

. Steiger’s second

degree murder conviction and his conduct unde rlying the conviction were the only topic s of discussion at the revocation and sentencing hearing

. Nearly all the time spent at that hearing was dedicated to getting straight the gruesome details of the crime

. The district court found as a matter of fact t hat Steiger committed the crime, quickly dismissing Steiger’s factual

- innocence argument. And although Steiger asked for a sentence of time served
, the government suggested a higher sentence because of Steiger’s disturbing conduct

. Because the district court’s reasoning is clear on the face of the record, Steiger cannot establish plain error. A remand in this circumstance would be a wasteful formality for the district court to state on the record what everyone already knows.
C.
To be clear, t his opinion does not address whether the district court’s reasons for varying upward were appropriate or otherwise resolve whether Steiger’s sentence is lawful . He raised multiple procedural and substantive arguments on appeal . The panel initially assigned to t his case was foreclosed from reaching those USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 19 of 2320 Opinion of the Court 22

- 10742 arguments because of our per se rule of reversal. Today’s holding

— that the district court’s failure to explicitly state its reasons for an upward variance was not plain error because those reasons are obviou s on the face of the record

— simply removes the barrier to review.
III.

W e REMAND to the panel for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 20 of 2322

- 10742 Jordan, J., Concurring 1
J ORDAN , Circuit Judge, joined by R OSENBAUM and J ILL P RYOR , Circuit Judges, Concurring : I join Judge Brasher’s well

- written opinion in full but write briefly to offer some cautionary thoughts. Justice Holmes once remarked that “hard cases” can “make bad law.” Northern Sec. Co. v. United States , 193 U.S. 197, 400 (1904) (Holmes, J., dissenting). But easy cases s ometimes bring difficulties of their own. Our affirmance in this case, under plain error review, is made relatively simple by the fact that Mr. Steiger murdered the mother of his child while on probation. But most cases will not be so easy. In run of th e mill cases

— where many different facts and arguments may be in play at sentencing

— analyzing the substantialrights prong of the plain error analysis may not be as straightforward. I doubt very much that many cases in the future will be this cut and dry. While on federal probation, Mr. Steiger was convicted in state court of the second

- degree murder of the mother of his child.The probation office petitioned the district court to revoke his probation on this one ground, and the conviction was understand ably the focus of the revocation hearing. At the hearing, Mr. Steiger argued that he should be sentenced to time

- served because he was already facing life imprisonment on the second

- degree murder conviction and because

— despite the jury verdict

— he had not committed the murder. All parties, including Mr. Steiger, understood that the advisory guidelines range for the probation violation was 12 to 18 months. And Mr. Steiger did not object to the government’s USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 21 of 232 Jordan, J., Concurring 22

- 10742 representation that, according to probation, the d istrict court was statutorily authorized to sentence him to 20 years for each of hisfour original federal offenses and to run the sentences consecutively, for a maximum sentence of 80 years. The district court sentenced Mr. Steiger to four terms of 20
y ears, but ran those terms concurrently with each other and with his state court life imprisonment sentence. All of this is to say that the probation revocation sentence did not come out of left field. Nor is it hard to discern the district court’s reason ing

— there was only one reason for the revocation and for the sentence, and that was Mr. Steiger’s commission of murder.But sentencing is often a more complicated affair, with opposing recommendations from the parties, competing aggravating and mitigating facts, possible enhancements, departures, and variances, and disputed guideline provisions. If a district court does not adequately explain its reasons for a sentence, those reasons may not be apparent from the record. See, e.g. , United States v. Wallac e , 597 F.3d 794, 805 (6th Cir. 2010) (2

- 1 decision) (finding plain error where the majority (a) “simply [could] not determine whether the district [court] considered the disparity between [the co

- defendants’] sentences,” and (b) disagreed with the dissent’ s contention that “it [wa]s clear” that the district court considered the argument, which it deemed “conceptually straightforward”). We do not provide a benchmark today on when a “district court’s reasoning is unclear on the face of the record.” Maj. Op. at 16 . A defendant’s ability to satisfy his or her burden under plain USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 22 of 2322

- 10742 Jordan, J., Concurring 3 error review is therefore going to be fact

- specific and subject to a

case

- by

- case adjudication. This is the right call, as a really easy case like this one can make it difficult to pro vide broad guidance for the future. USCA11 Case: 22-10742 Document: 56-1 Date Filed: 04/29/2024 Page: 23 of 23