UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 19-4426

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

 Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

LAWRENCE A. JORDAN,

 Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at 

Alexandria. Claude M. Hilton, Senior District Judge. (1:09-cr-00409-CMH-1)

Submitted: March 31, 2020 Decided: April 7, 2020

Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, DIAZ, Circuit Judge, and SHEDD, Senior Circuit Judge.

Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Geremy C. Kamens, Federal Public Defender, Caroline S. Platt, OFFICE OF THE 

FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant. G. Zachary 

Terwilliger, United States Attorney, Jason Trigger, Special Assistant United States 

Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria, Virginia, for 

Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Lawrence A. Jordan appeals his 18-month sentence imposed upon revocation of his 

supervised release. Shortly after beginning a period of supervised release for his original 

conviction, Jordan was arrested for, and pled guilty in the District of Columbia Superior 

Court to, third degree sexual abuse by force. After serving 22 months for the sexual abuse

offense, the district court revoked his supervised release and sentenced him to 18 months’ 

imprisonment. On appeal, Jordan argues that his revocation sentence is procedurally

unreasonable because the district court did not adequately explain his sentence and failed 

to address his nonfrivolous arguments for a lower sentence.1

“We will affirm a revocation sentence if it is within the statutory maximum and is 

not plainly unreasonable.” United States v. Slappy, 872 F.3d 202, 207 (4th Cir. 2017) 

(internal quotation marks omitted). “When reviewing whether a revocation sentence is 

plainly unreasonable, we must first determine whether it is unreasonable at all.” United 

States v. Thompson, 595 F.3d 544, 546 (4th Cir. 2010). “Only if this modified 

reasonableness analysis leads us to conclude that the sentence was unreasonable, do we ask 

whether it is plainly so, relying on the definition of plain used in our plain error analysis—

that is, clear or obvious.” United States v. Moulden, 478 F.3d 652, 657 (4th Cir. 2007) 

(alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). 

However, “even if a revocation sentence is plainly unreasonable, we will still affirm 

it if we find that any errors are harmless.” Slappy, 872 F.3d at 207. An error is harmless 

 1 Jordan concedes that he violated the terms of his supervised release.
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if the government “demonstrates that the error did not have a substantial and injurious 

effect or influence on the result and we can say with fair assurance that the district court’s 

explicit consideration of the defendant’s arguments would not have affected the sentence 

imposed.” United States v. Boulware, 604 F.3d 832, 838 (4th Cir. 2010) (alterations and 

internal quotation marks omitted). 

“A revocation sentence is procedurally reasonable if the district court adequately 

explains the chosen sentence after considering the Sentencing Guidelines’ nonbinding 

Chapter Seven policy statements and the applicable 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) [(2018)] factors.” 

Slappy, 872 F.3d at 207; see 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e) (2018) (listing relevant factors). “A court 

need not be as detailed or specific when imposing a revocation sentence as it must be when 

imposing a post-conviction sentence, but it still must provide a statement of reasons for the 

sentence imposed.” Thompson, 595 F.3d at 547 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

However, “where a court entirely fails to mention a party’s nonfrivolous arguments 

in favor of a particular sentence, or where the court fails to provide at least some reason 

why those arguments are unpersuasive, even the relaxed requirements for revocation 

sentences are not satisfied.” Slappy, 872 F.3d at 209. While “[t]he context surrounding a 

district court’s explanation may imbue it with enough content for us to evaluate both 

whether the court considered the § 3553(a) factors and whether it did so properly,” United 

States v. Montes-Pineda, 445 F.3d 375, 381 (4th Cir. 2006), we “may not guess at the 

district court’s rationale, searching the record for statements by the Government or defense 

counsel or for any other clues that might explain a sentence,” United States v. Ross, 912 

F.3d 740, 745 (4th Cir.) (internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 140 S. Ct. 206 
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(2019). Nor can we “assume that a sentencing court truly considered a defendant’s 

nonfrivolous arguments or his individual characteristics when the record fails to make it 

patently obvious.” United States v. Blue, 877 F.3d 513, 521 (4th Cir. 2017) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). 

Here, the district court’s explanation was contained in one sentence: “There’s no 

question after being on supervised release a short period of time you did commit another 

offense, and of course I’ve got to address that.” (J.A. 40).2

 The Government argues that 

because the district court did not depart from Jordan’s policy statement range, we should 

presume that the district court “properly considered the pertinent statutory factors.” United 

States v. Johnson, 138 F.3d 115, 119 (4th Cir. 1998). This argument is unavailing because 

it does not address the district court’s failure to consider Jordan’s nonfrivolous arguments. 

Further, this is not a case where “a district court’s reasons for imposing a within-range 

sentence may be clear from context.” Thompson, 595 F.3d at 547. The district court clearly 

gave weight to the short period of time in between Jordan’s release and his commission of 

another offense, but the record does not include facts that show why the district court did 

not give weight to any of Jordan’s arguments. Accordingly, we conclude that the district 

court’s failure to adequately explain the sentence and address Jordan’s arguments makes

the sentence plainly procedurally unreasonable. 

The Government maintains that any error is harmless because the record makes 

plain that the district court adopted its primary argument—that Jordan’s commission of a 

 2 “J.A.” refers to the joint appendix filed by the parties in this appeal.
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serious offense shortly after beginning his period of supervised release merited a new 

period of imprisonment. The Government also argues that any error is harmless because 

Jordan’s arguments in favor of a lower sentence were too weak to overcome Jordan’s 

“breach of trust,” noting in opposition to Jordan’s mental health argument that the D.C. 

Superior Court eventually found Jordan competent to stand trial. The Government 

compares this case to Boulware, where we found an adequate explanation error harmless 

where the record left us “with no doubt” that the district court considered the defendant’s 

arguments and that those arguments were “very weak.” 604 F.3d at 839-40.

As discussed above, the record does not make it plain that the district court adopted 

the Government’s argument. The district court did not state that it was adopting, or that it 

agreed with, the Government’s argument. Further, in Boulware, the defendant’s argument 

“amounted only to her claim that imprisoning her would negatively impact several other 

people.” Id. In contrast, Jordan argued that he has already served time for the offense 

leading to his revocation sentence, that he has potentially severe mental health problems as 

demonstrated by the D.C. Superior Court deeming him incompetent until after he 

underwent months-long, in-patient treatment, and that the D.C. Superior Court will be 

supervising him until November 2023. Further, although Boulware addressed an original 

sentence, the sentencing court there made it much more evident that it had considered the 

defendant’s arguments. See id. at 839. The Government is unable to show that the district 

court’s failure to explain its sentence and address Jordan’s nonfrivolous arguments did not 

have “a substantial and injurious effect” on Jordan’s sentence. Id. at 838. 
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Accordingly, we vacate Jordan’s sentence and remand for resentencing. We 

dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately 

presented in the materials before this court and argument would not aid the decisional 

process.

VACATED AND REMANDED