IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-30620

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

QUINCY DEMOND HOOVER, also known as Q., 

Defendant - Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Louisiana

USDC No. 5:14-CR-145-1

Before CLEMENT, PRADO, and OWEN, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

Appellant Quincy Demond Hoover (“Hoover”) appeals his sentence. For 

the following reasons, we AFFIRM. 

I.

During a multi-year investigation of illegal drug activity in northwestern 

Louisiana, agents at the Drug Enforcement Administration intercepted 

several electronic communications linking Hoover to a wide-spread drug-ring 

 

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 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 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

October 31, 2016

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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funneling illicit substances into the state from Houston, Texas. Acting on this 

information, police arrested Hoover during a routine traffic stop. A search of 

his vehicle revealed a small amount of marijuana, seven active cellphones, a 

drug ledger, and a hidden compartment capable of holding approximately ten, 

one-kilogram packages. About one month later, police searched Hoover’s home, 

including a truck parked outside, and confiscated two loaded handguns, seven 

pounds of marijuana, 2,500 grams of hydrocodone and Xanax, and $20,000 in 

cash. That same day, police arrested five other co-conspirators and seized 

$496,000, including $16,000 stored in Hoover’s personal bank account. 

Hoover was indicted on six counts in a massive multi-defendant 

prosecution involving a cocaine distribution conspiracy. He pleaded guilty to 

conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or 

more of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) (“the conspiracy count”)

and possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking offense, in violation of 18 

U.S.C. § 924(c)(1) (“the firearm count”). The remaining charges were 

dismissed. 

The district court ordered a presentence investigation report (“report”).

All parties agree that the report contained erroneously calculated advisoryGuidelines ranges and misstated the statutory minimums for supervised 

release for both counts. The report noted that Hoover’s total offense level was 

29 and that he had a criminal history category of III. This yielded a Guidelines

range of 108 to 135 months incarceration for the conspiracy count. Hoover 

objected to this calculation. At the sentencing hearing, the district court 

sustained his objection and lowered the total offense level to 27 and the

Guidelines range to 87 to 108 months. The report also erroneously stated that 

the relevant statutes imposed mandatory periods of supervised release of four 

years to life for the conspiracy count and five years to life for the firearm count.

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The correct Guidelines were four to five years and two to five years, 

respectively. Hoover did not object to these misstatements.

Before imposing sentence, the district court asked Hoover’s attorney 

whether his “client wish[ed] to engage in allocution.” The attorney declined, 

affirmatively stating that “[w]e’ll waive allocution.” The district court did not 

address Hoover directly. Nor did Hoover or his attorney make an on-the-record 

argument about the appropriate sentence. The district court sentenced Hoover

to consecutive prison terms of 108 months for the conspiracy count and 60 

months for the firearm count followed by two five-year terms of supervised 

release to run concurrently. 

II.

“If a litigant believes that an error has occurred (to his detriment) during 

a federal judicial proceeding, he must object in order to preserve the issue.” 

Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S. 129, 134 (2009). “If he fails to do so in a 

timely manner, his claim for relief from the error is forfeited.” Id. In federal 

criminal cases, an appellate court’s authority to remedy such forfeited claims

is limited to situations where the district court committed “[a] plain error that 

affects substantial rights.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b).

The Supreme Court has established a four-prong approach to “plainerror review.” United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 735-37 (1993). “First, there 

must be an error or defect—some sort of [d]eviation from a legal rule—that has 

not been intentionally relinquished or abandoned, i.e., affirmatively waived, by 

the appellant.” Puckett, 556 U.S. at 135 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Second, the error “must be clear or obvious, rather than subject to reasonable 

dispute.” Id. Third, the appellant must demonstrate that the error “affected 

the outcome of the district court proceedings.” Olano, 507 U.S. at 734. If—and 

only if—the first three prongs are satisfied, the court of appeals has the 

discretion to remedy the error. This discretion should only be exercised if the 

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error “seriously affect[s] the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial 

proceedings.” Id. at 736 (quoting United States v. Atkinson, 297 U.S. 157, 160 

(1936)). Satisfying all four prongs is difficult, “as it should be.” United States 

v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S. 74, 83 n.9 (2004).

III.

Hoover now challenges his sentence, arguing that the district court 

plainly erred by (1) miscalculating the drug quantity and base offense level; (2) 

failing to provide Hoover with an opportunity to personally allocute at his 

sentencing hearing; (3) calculating an incorrect statutory range for supervised 

release for both counts; and (4) imposing a portion of its sentencing 

determination prior to the issuance of the report. Each argument will be 

addressed in turn.

First, Hoover’s challenges to the drug quantity and base offense level 

determined by the district court are substantially the same arguments that he 

raised in the district court before he expressly agreed with the district court’s 

resolution of his arguments. These arguments are thus waived and 

unreviewable. United States v. Musquiz, 45 F.3d 927, 931 (5th Cir. 1995)

(“Waived errors are entirely unreviewable, unlike forfeited errors, which are 

reviewable for plain error.”).

Second, Hoover argues that the district court violated his right of 

allocution by asking his attorney whether Hoover wished to allocute rather 

than addressing Hoover personally. Cf. Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(i)(4)(A)(ii). The 

government concedes that this was plain error, but argues that Hoover has 

failed to demonstrate that this error “seriously affect[ed] the fairness, 

integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Olano, 507 U.S. at 736.

We agree. We have previously held that the “denial of the right of allocution is 

not a fundamental defect that inherently results in a complete miscarriage of 

justice nor an omission inconsistent with the rudimentary demands of fair 

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procedure.” United States v. Magwood, 445 F.3d 826, 830 (5th Cir. 2006)

(quoting United States v. Reyna, 358 F.3d 344, 356 (5th Cir. 2004) (en banc))

(internal quotation marks omitted). To prevail on the fourth prong of the plainerror analysis, Hoover must “show some objective basis that would have moved 

the trial court to grant a lower sentence; otherwise, it can hardly be said that 

a miscarriage of justice has occurred.” Id. (quoting Reyna, 358 F.3d at 356 

(Jones, J., concurring)). He has failed to do so.

When the district court selected a 108-month sentence, it expressed 

concern that Hoover “apparently was a traveling pharmacy” and found that 

“the gun offense in connection with” his cocaine conspiracy offense “puts him 

into a different category of criminal.” Hoover does not identify anything he 

would have said to allay these concerns. See Magwood, 445 F.3d at 830.

Accordingly, it would be inappropriate for us to exercise discretion and reverse.

Third, Hoover challenges the erroneous calculation of his statutory and 

Guidelines ranges of supervised release. Again, we apply the plain error 

standard because Hoover did not object when the district court adopted the 

errors in the report. Molina-Martinez v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1338, 1342–

43 (2016) (“The Guidelines are complex, and so there will be instances when a 

district court’s sentencing of a defendant within the framework of an incorrect 

Guidelines range goes unnoticed. In that circumstance, because the defendant 

failed to object to the miscalculation, appellate review of the error is governed 

by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b).”) Hoover fails to even address, 

and thus fails to satisfy, the fourth prong of the plain-error standard. See 

Puckett, 556 U.S. at 135; United States v. Andaverde-Tiñoco, 741 F.3d 509, 523 

(5th Cir. 2013). We cannot conclude that the erroneous calculation constitutes 

a “complete miscarriage of justice.” Magwood, 445 F.3d at 830.

Finally, Hoover contends that the district court erred by announcing at 

the plea agreement hearing, “before the [report] was submitted,” that it would 

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impose a five-year term of supervised release for the firearm count. We 

disagree. A review of the transcript reveals that the district court made no such 

ruling but was simply trying to explain to Hoover that, unlike his sentences of 

imprisonment, his terms of supervised release would run concurrently. See 18 

U.S.C. § 924(c); 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B); United States v. McGary, 600 F. App’x 

277, 278 (5th Cir. 2015) (reversing district court’s imposition of consecutive

terms of supervised release). We see no error, plain or otherwise. See Puckett, 

556 U.S. at 135. 

IV.

For the forgoing reasons, Hoover’s sentence is AFFIRMED.

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