United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit

No. 21-50656

United States of America, 

Plaintiff—Appellee,

versus

William Lafayette Ross, 

Defendant—Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Texas

USDC No. 7:20-CR-277-1

Before Richman, Chief Judge, and Ho and Engelhardt, Circuit 

Judges.

Per Curiam:*

William Lafayette Ross was convicted via bench trial of possession 

with intent to distribute fifty grams or more of actual methamphetamine and 

possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. He was 

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opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited 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

July 7, 2022

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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sentenced to a total of 180 months in prison, followed by a five-year term of 

supervised release. Ross filed a timely notice of appeal.

Ross’ court-appointed attorney, Rebecca Olla, moved to withdraw.1

Court-appointed attorneys may move to withdraw on appeal after they 

conduct “a conscientious examination of” the record and determine that an 

appeal is “wholly frivolous.” Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738, 744 (1967). 

As required by Anders, Olla filed “a brief referring to anything in the record 

that might arguably support the appeal.” Id. We review that brief and the 

record as it relates to the issues discussed therein, United States v. Flores, 632 

F.3d 229, 234 (5th Cir. 2011), and will grant the attorney’s motion if the 

appeal lacks any “legal points arguable on their merits” and is, therefore, 

“wholly frivolous.” Anders, 386 U.S. at 744. Olla’s Anders brief meets the 

relevant requirements, with one caveat.

At the time Olla filed the Anders brief, there was one potential 

nonfrivolous issue for appeal that the brief did not consider. Specifically, it 

did not address whether imposition of a particular condition of supervised 

release was an improper delegation of a core judicial function to a probation 

officer. See United States v. Barber, 865 F.3d 837, 839 (5th Cir. 2017). The 

condition provides:

If the probation officer determines that the defendant poses a 

risk to another person (including an organization), the 

probation officer may require the defendant to notify the 

person about the risk and the defendant shall comply with that 

instruction. The probation officer may contact the person and 

1 Ross was informed of this motion and of his right to respond. He has not done so.

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confirm that the defendant has notified the person about the 

risk.

At the time of filing, this court had not resolved whether that condition might 

be an impermissible delegation. See United States v. Johnson, 777 F. App’x 

754, 754 (5th Cir. 2019) (per curiam).

Ross had notice of the condition and an opportunity to object to it, but 

he failed to do so. Thus, our review on appeal would be limited to plain error. 

United States v. Grogan, 977 F.3d 348, 353 (5th Cir. 2020). We have recently 

clarified that imposing conditions identical to the one imposed here is neither 

plain error, United States v. Henderson, 29 F.4th 273, 276 (5th Cir. 2022), nor 

any variety of error whatsoever. United States v. Mejia-Banegas, 32 F.4th 450, 

452 (5th Cir. 2022) (per curiam). Thus, this condition cannot form the basis 

of a non-frivolous appeal. We accordingly GRANT Olla’s motion to 

withdraw and, seeing no remaining non-frivolous bases for appeal,

DISMISS Ross’ appeal. See 5th Cir. R. 42.2 (frivolous and unmeritorious 

appeals).

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