UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 12-4951

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

MAURICE TERRELL GENERAL,

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. (5:05-cr-00125-D-1)

Submitted: June 27, 2013 Decided: July 16, 2013

Before NIEMEYER, DAVIS, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, Devon L. Donahue, 

Assistant Federal Public Defender, Raleigh, North Carolina, for 

Appellant. Thomas G. Walker, United States Attorney, Jennifer 

P. May-Parker, Kristine L. Fritz, Assistant United States 

Attorneys, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Maurice Terrell General appeals from his 60-month 

sentence imposed pursuant to the revocation of his supervised 

release. On appeal, General argues that his sentence was 

plainly unreasonable, as the district court failed to give 

appropriate reasoning for an upward variance from the Guidelines 

policy statement range of 30-37 months and improperly relied too 

heavily on the seriousness of the revocation violation conduct. 

We affirm.

We will affirm a sentence imposed after revocation of 

supervised release if it is within the prescribed statutory 

range and not plainly unreasonable. United States v. Crudup, 

461 F.3d 433, 439-40 (4th Cir. 2006). In determining whether a 

sentence is plainly unreasonable, we first consider whether the 

sentence is unreasonable. Id. at 438. In this inquiry, we

“take[] a more deferential appellate posture concerning issues 

of fact and the exercise of discretion than reasonableness 

review for guidelines sentences.” United States v. Moulden, 478 

F.3d 652, 656 (4th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). Only if we find the sentence procedurally or 

substantively unreasonable must we decide whether it is 

“plainly” so. Id. at 657.

We “may consider the extent of the deviation [from the 

recommended Guidelines range], but must give due deference to 
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the district court’s decision that the [18 U.S.C.] § 3553(a)

[(2006)] factors, on a whole, justify the extent of the 

variance.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). “The 

sentencing judge should set forth enough to satisfy the 

appellate court that he has considered the parties’ arguments 

and has a reasoned basis for exercising his own legal 

decisionmaking authority.” United States v. Carter, 564 F.3d 

325, 328 (4th Cir. 2009). The Carter rationale applies to 

revocation hearings; however, “[a] court need not be as detailed 

or specific when imposing a revocation sentence as it must be 

when imposing a post-conviction sentence.” United States v. 

Thompson, 595 F.3d 544, 547 (4th Cir. 2010) (noting that a 

district court’s reasoning may be “clear from context” and the 

court’s statements throughout the sentencing hearing may be 

considered). 

General argues first that the sentence imposed is 

procedurally unreasonable because the district court failed to 

provide sufficient reasoning for its upward variance from the 

policy statement range. However, the court clearly heard 

General’s arguments for leniency, but found that the other 

factors in the case outweighed these circumstances. 

Specifically, the court explicitly relied upon General’s 

untruthfulness at the hearing, the fact that he committed two 

violations, the need to deter General from further egregious 
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criminal behavior, and the fact that society needed to be 

protected from General. The record reflects that the district 

court properly calculated the advisory policy statement range, 

considered the parties’ arguments and the relevant policy 

statements and statutory factors, and adequately explained the 

reasons for the upward variance. Accordingly, the sentence is 

not procedurally unreasonable. 

Next, General argues that his sentence was 

substantively unreasonable because the court considered and 

weighed an improper factor when determining his sentence. 

Specifically, General avers that the court relied almost 

exclusively on the seriousness of the criminal conduct forming 

the basis for his supervised release violation. Although a 

district court “ultimately has broad discretion to revoke its 

previous sentence and impose a term of imprisonment up to the 

statutory maximum,” Crudup, 461 F.3d at 439 (internal quotation 

marks omitted), the court must consider the Chapter Seven policy 

statements in the federal sentencing guidelines manual, as well 

as the statutory requirements and factors applicable to 

revocation sentences under 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553(a), 3583(e) (2006). 

Chapter Seven provides, “at revocation, the court should 

sanction primarily the defendant’s breach of trust, while taking 

into account, to a limited degree, the seriousness of the 

underlying violation and the criminal history of the violator.” 
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U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual ch. 7, pt. A(3)(b) (2011). 

Section 3583 approves consideration of a majority of the factors 

listed in § 3553(a), omitting only two. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e). 

Among the omitted factors is the need “to reflect the 

seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and 

to provide just punishment for the offense.” 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3553(a)(2)(A).

Here, the district court considered General’s breach 

of trust and the need to deter him from future criminal conduct, 

as well as other appropriate factors. While General accurately 

states that the court noted the nature of his revocation 

offense, the court clearly considered these facts in the context 

of assessing the need to protect the public from General's 

future crimes and to deter future conduct, required 

considerations for revocation sentences. See 18 U.S.C. 

§ 3553(a)(2)(B),(C). Moreover, to the extent the court 

emphasized the seriousness of the revocation conduct, viewed as 

a whole, we find that any such consideration was only one of 

many factors considered by the court and such consideration did 

not render General's sentence unreasonable. Furthermore, the 

court's comments explicitly stated that it imposed a sentence 

above the advisory policy statement range as a result of 

General's extraordinarily egregious breach of trust.
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Accordingly, we affirm General’s sentence. 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.

AFFIRMED