UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 13-4728

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee, 

v. 

JAMES THOMAS LYNWOOD JOHNSON, 

 Defendant - Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. James C. Dever, III, 

Chief District Judge. (5:02-cr-00036-D-2) 

Submitted: March 17, 2014 Decided: April 1, 2014

Before KING, SHEDD, and THACKER, Circuit Judges. 

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. 

Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, G. Alan DuBois, 

First Assistant Federal Public Defender, Raleigh, North 

Carolina, for Appellant. Thomas G. Walker, United States 

Attorney, Jennifer P. May-Parker, Yvonne Watford-McKinney, 

Assistant United States Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for 

Appellee. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

James Thomas Lynwood Johnson appeals the district 

court’s judgment revoking his supervised release and imposing a 

twenty-four-month prison term. Johnson challenges this 

sentence, arguing that it is plainly unreasonable. We affirm. 

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 a sentence imposed after revocation of supervised 

release if it is within the applicable statutory maximum and not 

“plainly unreasonable.” United States v. Crudup, 461 F.3d 433, 

437, 439–40 (4th Cir. 2006). In determining whether a 

revocation sentence is plainly unreasonable, we first assess the 

sentence for unreasonableness, “follow[ing] generally the 

procedural and substantive considerations that we employ in our 

review of original sentences.” Id. at 438. 

A supervised release revocation sentence is 

procedurally reasonable if the district court considered the 

Sentencing Guidelines’ Chapter 7 advisory policy statements and 

the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (2012) factors it is permitted to 

consider in a supervised release revocation case. 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3583(e) (2012); Crudup, 461 F.3d at 439. Although a district 

court need not explain the reasons for imposing a revocation 

sentence in as much detail as when it imposes an original 
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sentence, it “still must provide a statement of reasons for the 

sentence imposed.” Thompson, 595 F.3d at 547 (internal 

quotation marks omitted). The reasons articulated by the 

district court for a given revocation sentence, however, need 

not be “couched in the precise language of § 3553(a),” so long 

as the “reasons can be matched to a factor appropriate for 

consideration under [§ 3553(a)] and [were] clearly tied to 

[the defendant’s] particular situation.” United States v. 

Moulden, 478 F.3d 652, 658 (4th Cir. 2007). 

A revocation sentence is substantively reasonable if 

the district court stated a proper basis for concluding the 

defendant should receive the sentence imposed, up to the 

statutory maximum. Crudup, 461 F.3d at 440. Only if a sentence 

is found procedurally or substantively unreasonable will we 

“then decide whether the sentence is plainly unreasonable.” 

Id. at 439. A sentence is plainly unreasonable if it is clearly 

or obviously unreasonable. Id. 

In this case, there is no dispute that Johnson’s 

twenty-four-month prison sentence does not exceed the applicable 

statutory maximum. 18 U.S.C. §§ 3559(a), 3583(e)(3) (2012). 

The district court considered the advisory policy statement 

range of eighteen to twenty-four months’ imprisonment, see U.S. 

Sentencing Guidelines Manual (“USSG”) §§ 7B1.1(a)(1), (b), 

7B1.4(a), p.s (2012), and heard and considered argument from 
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counsel for both parties and allocution from Johnson. 

On appeal, Johnson challenges the adequacy of the district 

court’s explanation for the sentence. After review of the 

parties’ briefs and the record, we reject Johnson’s challenge. 

In rejecting defense counsel’s request for a sentence 

at the low end of the policy statement range, the district court 

also considered Johnson’s history and characteristics, the 

nature and circumstances of his violative behavior, and the need 

for the revocation sentence to sanction his breach of trust, 

see 18 U.S.C. § 3353(a)(1); USSG Ch. 7, Pt. A, introductory cmt. 

3(b) (“[A]t revocation the [district] court should sanction 

primarily the defendant’s breach of trust.”), and explained that 

these factors supported the imposition of a sentence at the top 

of the policy statement range. 

We conclude that the district court adequately 

explained its rationale for imposing the twenty-four-month 

prison sentence and relied on proper considerations in doing so. 

Based on the broad discretion that a district court has to 

revoke a term of supervised release and impose a prison term up 

to and including the statutory maximum, Johnson’s revocation 

sentence is not unreasonable. Therefore, we conclude that 

Johnson’s sentence is not plainly unreasonable. 

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. 

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

this court and argument would not aid the decisional process. 

AFFIRMED