United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit

No. 19-50447

United States of America, 

Plaintiff—Appellee,

versus

Carlos Saul Becerra, 

Defendant—Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Texas

USDC No. 3:18-CR-2541-1

Before King, Stewart, and Southwick, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam:*

The opinion entered on October 6, 2020, and revised on October 21, 

2020, is withdrawn.

Defendant, who pled guilty to child-pornography charges, appeals the 

district court’s imposition of special conditions of supervised release that 

* Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this 

opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited 

circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

February 2, 2021

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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prevent him from using the Internet, computers, and other electronic devices

for the ten years following his initial sentence of 151 months. For the reasons 

stated herein, we VACATE those special conditions and REMAND to the 

district court for resentencing proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

In April 2018, FBI agents conducting an online investigation into child 

pornography identified an Internet Protocol (“IP”) address sharing child 

pornography. The agents traced the IP address to defendant, Carlos Saul 

Becerra. Three months later, agents executed a search warrant at Becerra’s 

residence and discovered several electronic devices, including laptop 

computers, mobile phones, and external hard drives. Becerra admitted to 

agents that the electronic devices belonged to him and that they would find 

child pornography downloaded onto the devices. Agents conducted a 

forensic examination of the devices seized from Becerra’s residence and 

identified 11,205 photographs and 538 videos containing child pornography.

Becerra had been involved in downloading child pornography for more than 

four years. 

On January 17, 2019, Becerra pled guilty to receipt and distribution of 

a visual depiction involving the sexual exploitation of a minor, in violation of 

18 U.S.C. §§ 2252(a)(2) and (b)(1), and to possession of a visual depiction 

involving sexual exploitation of a minor under 12 years of age, in violation of 

18 U.S.C. §§ 2252(a)(4)(B) and (b)(2). Following his guilty plea, a probation 

officer prepared a presentence investigation report (“PSR”). The PSR 

calculated a total offense level of 32. That total offense level, paired with 

Becerra’s criminal history, resulted in an advisory sentencing range of 151 

months’ to 188 months’ imprisonment. The PSR further recommended 

various special conditions of supervised release. In relevant part, the PSR 

recommended that “[t]he defendant shall not possess and/or use computers 

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(as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 1030(e)(1)) or other electronic communications or 

data storage devices or media,” and “[t]he defendant shall not access the 

Internet.” These conditions were “recommended because of the nature and

circumstances of the instant offense, to protect the public from further 

crimes, and to support any of the recommendations made by the therapist 

during Becerra’s sex offender treatment.” 

Becerra did not object to the PSR at his sentencing hearing. The 

district court sentenced Becerra to concurrent terms of 151 months’ 

imprisonment, to be followed by ten years’ supervised release. As part of 

Becerra’s supervised release, the district court imposed, inter alia, the abovereferenced special conditions. Becerra did not object to these conditions of 

supervised release at sentencing and now appeals. 

II.

When a defendant “[does] not object to th[e] condition of his 

supervised release at sentencing, [the court] review[s] for plain error.” 

United States v. Halverson, 897 F.3d 645, 657 (5th Cir. 2018) (citing United 

States v. Duque–Hernandez, 710 F.3d 296, 298 (5th Cir. 2013)). To establish 

plain error, there must be (1) “a legal error or defect that has not been 

intentionally abandoned”; (2) that is “clear or obvious, rather than subject 

to reasonable dispute”; (3) that “affect[s] the appellant’s substantial rights, 

which means that the appellant must show that the error affected the 

outcome of the district court proceedings”; and (4) that “seriously affects 

the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id. The 

appellant “bears the burden as to each of these four [elements].” United 

States v. Huor, 852 F.3d 392, 398 (5th Cir. 2017).

We review conditions of supervised release in two steps. United States 

v. Scott, 821 F.3d 562, 567 (5th Cir. 2016). First, we must “ensure that the 

district court committed no significant procedural error,” such as “failing to 

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adequately explain the chosen sentence.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 

51 (2007). Second, we consider “the substantive reasonableness of the 

sentence imposed.” Id.

“A district court has wide, but not unfettered, discretion in imposing 

terms and conditions of supervised release.” United States v. Duke, 788 F.3d 

392, 398 (5th Cir. 2015). That discretion is statutorily limited in two ways. 

First, a condition of supervised release must be “reasonably related,” 18 

U.S.C. § 3583(d)(1), to one of four factors provided in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).

1

Second, the condition “must be narrowly tailored such that it does not 

involve a ‘greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary’to fulfill 

the purposes set forth in § 3553(a).” Duke, 788 F.3d at 398 (quoting United 

States v. Rodriguez, 558 F.3d 408, 412 (5th Cir. 2009)); see also 18 U.S.C. § 

3583(d)(2).

2

On appeal, Becerra challenges both the procedural and substantive 

reasonableness of his conditions of supervised release, arguing that the 

district court failed to explain the reasons for imposing the conditions and 

that the conditions are overbroad.

III.

We start by addressing whether the district court “committed [a] 

1 The four factors are: (1) “the nature and characteristics of the offense and the 

history and characteristics of the defendant,” (2) “the deterrence of criminal conduct,” 

(3) “the protection of the public from further crimes of the defendant,” and (4) “the 

provision of needed educational or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional 

treatment to the defendant.” United States v. Clark, 784 F. App’x 190, 193 (5th Cir. 2019), 

cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 881, 205 L. Ed. 2d 490 (2020) (citing United States v. Weatherton, 

567 F.3d 149, 153 (5th Cir. 2009)).

2 Though not relevant to Becerra’s appeal, conditions of supervised release must

also be “consistent with any pertinent policy statements issued by the Sentencing 

Commission.” 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(3). 

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significant procedural error.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. According to Becerra, the

district court erred by failing to explain its reasons for imposing the computer 

and Internet conditions of supervised release. The Government responds 

that the record contains sufficient evidence to support the district court’s

imposition of the conditions. 

Where the district court fails to adequately explain its reasons for 

imposing a special condition, we “may still affirm a special condition if we 

can infer the district court’s reasoning after an examination of the record.” 

United States v. Alvarez, 880 F.3d 236, 240 (5th Cir. 2018) (citing United 

States v. Caravayo, 809 F.3d 269, 275 (5th Cir. 2015)). In this case, the district 

court provided only a brief explanation for the imposition of the special 

conditions at sentencing, in its judgment, and in its Statement of Reasons. 

However, the PSR—which the district court incorporated in its Statement of 

Reasons—did state that the conditions were “recommended because of the 

nature and circumstances of the instant offense, to protect the public from 

further crimes, and to support any of the recommendations made by the 

therapist during Becerra’s sex offender treatment.” Considering the PSR’s

explanation and the fact that Becerra used computers and the Internet in the 

commission of his offenses, we can infer the district court’s rationale for 

imposing special conditions restricting his computer and Internet use. 

Accordingly, we find no procedural error. 

IV.

Becerra also challenges “the substantive reasonableness of the 

sentence imposed.” Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. Becerra argues that the special

conditions of supervised release banning his computer and Internet use are 

overbroad because they were made unconditional. He contends that we have

previously upheld such absolute restrictions only if they are limited in 

duration.

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A.

First, we consider whether the district court erred in imposing 

absolute ten-year bans on computer and Internet use. See United States v. 

Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993). We have rejected the idea that “an absolute 

prohibition on accessing computers or the Internet is per se an unacceptable 

condition of supervised release.” United States v. Paul, 274 F.3d 155, 169–70 

(5th Cir. 2001). Such absolute bans, however, have been affirmed only for 

limited durations such as three or five years. See id. at 157-58 (affirming an 

absolute, three-year ban on computer and Internet access); United States v. 

Rath, 614 F. App’x 188, 194 (5th Cir. 2015) (affirming an absolute, five-year 

ban on Internet access). We have rejected such bans where they effectively 

preclude a defendant “from meaningfully participating in modern society” 

for long periods of time. Duke, 788 F.3d at 400. 

To that end, this court requires conditions restricting the use of 

computers and the Internet to be “narrowly tailored either by scope or by 

duration.” Id. at 399. Where the duration of such restrictions is not narrowly 

tailored, the scope may be narrowed by permitting access when the defendant 

obtains the prior approval of the probation officer or the court. See United 

States v. Miller, 665 F.3d 114, 126 (5th Cir. 2011). However, even such prior 

approval requirements must generally be applied in such a way as to give 

defendants meaningful access to computers or the Internet. See, e.g., United 

States v. Sealed Juvenile, 781 F.3d 747, 756–57 (5th Cir. 2015) (holding that a 

requirement of prior approval “is not to be construed or enforced in such a 

manner that the [defendant] would be required to seek prior written approval 

every single time he must use a computer or access the Internet”). We have 

therefore found plain error in a conditional ban extended over ten years 

where the prior-approval requirement was strictly applied such that the 

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defendant was required to get approval every time he sought to use a computer 

or access the Internet. Clark, 784 F. App’x at 193–94.

In this case, the district court erred by imposing restrictions on 

computer and Internet use that were not “narrowly tailored either by scope 

or by duration.” Duke, 788 F.3d at 399. The ten-year bans in this case are 

absolute and would not even begin until after a 151-month term of 

imprisonment. We have repeatedly emphasized that “access to computers 

and the Internet is essential to functioning in today’s society.” Sealed 

Juvenile, 781 F.3d at 756; see also Duke, 788 F.3d at 400. The essential 

function of computers and the Internet in society will likely only increase over 

the twelve and a half years of Becerra’s sentence—as will the corresponding 

burden of the special conditions. See United States v. Perazza-Mercado, 553 

F.3d 65, 73 (1st Cir. 2009) (“Our concerns about [an] unqualified prohibition 

of home internet use are even more salient because the conditions . . . will 

only take effect . . . after the completion of [the] prison sentence. The 

importance of the internet in modern life has steadily increased over time, 

and we have no reason to believe that this trend will end.”). The district 

court’s special conditions should have been narrowed in their scope by, for 

example, permitting access with prior approval of Becerra’s probation officer 

or the district court.

We therefore find that the district court erred in imposing conditions 

of supervised release that fail to ensure no greater deprivation of liberty than 

is reasonably necessary. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d)(2). 

B.

Next, we discuss whether the district court’s error was plain. The 

Government contends that any error was not plain because there is no Fifth 

Circuit case directly on point. Becerra responds that we have previously 

“addressed unclear or prohibitive computer and internet restrictions.” 

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To determine whether an error is plain, we “look to the state of the 

law at the time of appeal[] and . . . decide whether controlling circuit or 

Supreme Court precedent has reached the issue in question[] or whether the 

legal question would be subject to reasonable dispute.” United States v. 

Fields, 777 F.3d 799, 802 (5th Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Our existing precedent clearly establishes that an absolute ban on 

computer and Internet use imposed for ten years is overbroad. In one 

opinion, we reviewed supervised-release conditions that prohibited the 

defendant from accessing computers or the Internet without the prior written 

approval of a probation officer. Sealed Juvenile, 781 F.3d at 756–57. Although 

the precise duration of supervised release was unclear, it was less than ten 

years. Id. at 749, 750 n.2 (stating that the defendant is fifteen years old and 

the supervised-release conditions will apply after his eighteen-month 

confinement and until he turns twenty-one years old). We held that to the 

extent the supervised-release conditions required the defendant to seek prior 

written approval of a probation officer each time he accessed computers or 

the Internet, the conditions were “unreasonably restrictive.” Id. at 756. 

Although we affirmed the conditions, we did so only subject to the instruction 

that they “not . . . be construed or enforced in such a manner that the Juvenile 

would be required to seek prior written approval every single time he must 

use a computer or access the Internet.” Id. at 756–57. 

Our holding in Sealed Juvenile necessarily invalidates the morerestrictive conditions at issue here. If requiring a defendant to obtain prior 

written approval to use computers or the Internet is unreasonably restrictive, 

then prohibiting the defendant from using computers or the Internet at all is 

unreasonably restrictive. This is especially so because a basis for our 

conclusion in Sealed Juvenile was that access to computers and the Internet 

is vital to function in modern society. Id. at 756. 

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We conclude that the district court’s error in imposing absolute, tenyear bans on Becerra’s computer and Internet use, to begin after Becerra 

serves his 151-month sentence, was plain.

C.

To satisfy the third prong of plain error review, Becerra must show 

that the error affected his substantial rights. United States v. MondragonSantiago, 564 F.3d 357, 364 (5th Cir. 2009). An error affects a party’s 

substantial rights when it changes “the outcome in the district court.” Id. We 

have also found that unreasonable conditions related to Internet use affect 

defendants’ substantial rights because of “the ubiquity and importance of the 

Internet to the modern world.” Clark, 784 F. App’x at 194 (quoting Duke, 

788 F.3d at 400); see also United States v. Herndon, 807 F. App’x 286, 291

(5th Cir. 2020) (same). 

In this case, considering the importance of the Internet in 

contemporary society, we conclude that the district court’s conditions 

restricting Becerra’s computer and Internet use affect his substantial rights. 

D.

Finally, we must determine whether the error “seriously affect[s] the 

fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings” such that we

should exercise our remedial discretion. Olano, 507 U.S. at 736 (alteration in 

original) (quoting United States v. Atkinson, 297 U.S. 157, 160 (1936)). The 

Government argues that we should decline to exercise our discretion to 

vacate the conditions of supervised release because Becerra has not met his 

stringent burden of proof on this prong; he failed to object to the condition 

during sentencing; and the conditions are modifiable.

In analyzing this final prong of plain error review, “we look to ‘the 

degree of the error and the particular facts of the case’ to determine whether 

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to exercise our discretion.” United States v. Avalos–Martinez, 700 F.3d 148, 

154 (5th Cir. 2012) (quoting United States v. Davis, 602 F.3d 643, 651 (5th 

Cir. 2010)). The Supreme Court recently advised that an error in sentencing 

is “precisely the type of error that ordinarily warrants relief.” Rosales–Mireles 

v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1897, 1907 (2018); see Herndon, 807 F. App’x at 

291 (applying Rosales–Mireles to conditions of supervised release). In 

particular, because such errors are “judicial errors,” correction is favored. 

Herndon, 807 F. App’x at 291.

As to the Government’s argument that the conditions could be 

modified, the Fifth Circuit has held that “a defendant faces an uphill battle” 

in asking the court to exercise its discretion to vacate a modifiable condition,

but has made clear that modifiability is not dispositive of the issue. United 

States v. Prieto, 801 F.3d 547, 554 (5th Cir. 2015); see also Alvarez, 880 F.3d 

at 242 (“[T]he ability of a defendant to modify a special condition is only one 

factor considered as we determine whether to exercise our discretion.”). We 

have previously exercised our discretion to vacate improper but modifiable 

conditions. See, e.g., Clark, 784 F. App’x at 194 n.2. The fact that “a 

sweeping ban on computer or internet use” may be modified in the future 

“does not immunize the ban from an inquiry that evaluates the justification 

for the ban in the first instance.” Duke, 788 F.3d at 401 (quoting United States 

v. Ramos, 763 F.3d 45, 61 (1st Cir. 2014)).

Accordingly, because the district court’s error seriously affects the 

fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings, we conclude 

that this case warrants an exercise of discretion to correct the error. 

V.

For the foregoing reasons, we VACATE the district court’s 

imposition of special conditions of supervised release barring Becerra’s use 

of the Internet, computers, and other electronic devices for ten years and 

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REMAND for resentencing consistent with this opinion.3

3 On remand, the district court should consider “alternative measures previously 

approved by this court,” including “conditioning [Becerra’s] computer and Internet usage 

on receiving prior approval from his probation officer or the district court.” Duke, 788 F.3d 

at 400 n.2. However, if the district court decides to impose such a condition, “it should be 

mindful not to fashion” the condition such that it would “impose ‘the heavy burden of 

requiring prior written approval every time [the defendant] must use a computer or access 

the Internet for . . . salutary purposes.’” Id. (quoting Sealed Juvenile, 781 F.3d at 757). 

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