UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-4537

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

ARCHIE LARUE EVANS,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Florence. R. Bryan Harwell, District Judge. 

(4:12-cr-00575-RBH-1)

Submitted: June 29, 2015 Decided: July 8, 2015

Before KING and KEENAN, Circuit Judges, and DAVIS, Senior 

Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Jessica Salvini, SALVINI & BENNETT, LLC, Greenville, South 

Carolina, for Appellant. William E. Day, II, Assistant United

States Attorney, Florence, South Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Pursuant to a written plea agreement, Archie LaRue Evans 

pled guilty to one count of mail fraud, in violation of 18 

U.S.C. § 1341 (2012), and one count of conspiracy to structure 

transactions with a financial institution to evade currency 

reporting requirements, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 (2012). 

The district court sentenced Evans to 84 months in prison, a 

slight downward variance from the 87 to 108-month Sentencing 

Guidelines range. Evans timely appealed.

Evans’ counsel has filed a brief pursuant to Anders v. 

California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), stating that there are no 

meritorious grounds for appeal, but asserting that Evans did not 

knowingly and voluntarily waive his right to appeal, and 

questioning the reasonableness of Evans’ sentence. Counsel also 

advances claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel and 

prosecutorial misconduct. For the reasons that follow, we 

affirm.

As a preliminary matter, Evans’ plea agreement contained a 

waiver-of-appellate-rights provision. However, the Government 

has not asserted the appellate waiver as a basis for dismissing 

this appeal and we decline to sua sponte enforce appellate 

waivers. See generally, United States v. Blick, 408 F.3d 162, 

168 (4th Cir. 2005) (citing United States v. Brock, 211 F.3d 88, 
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90 n.1 (4th Cir. 2000)). We therefore need not consider whether 

Evans knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to appeal.

We next review Evans’ sentence for both procedural and 

substantive reasonableness “under a deferential abuse-ofdiscretion standard.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 41 

(2007). We must “ensure that the district court committed no 

significant procedural error, such as . . . improperly 

calculating[] the Guidelines range.” Id. at 51. If there is no 

significant procedural error, we then consider the sentence’s 

substantive reasonableness under “the totality of the 

circumstances, including the extent of any variance from the 

Guidelines range.” Id. We presume that a sentence below a 

properly calculated Guidelines range is reasonable. United 

States v. Louthian, 756 F.3d 295, 306 (4th Cir. 2014), cert. 

denied, 135 S. Ct. 421 (2014). A defendant can rebut this 

presumption only “by showing that the sentence is unreasonable 

when measured against the [18 U.S.C.] § 3553(a) [(2012)]

factors.” Id. After reviewing the presentence report and the 

sentencing transcript, we conclude that Evans’ below-Guidelines 

sentence is both procedurally and substantively reasonable.

Evans also asserts that both his privately-retained 

attorney and the court-appointed public defender were 

ineffective. To succeed on a claim of ineffective assistance of 

counsel, Evans must show that (1) counsel’s performance was 
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constitutionally deficient and (2) such deficient performance 

was prejudicial. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 

(1984). To satisfy the performance prong, Evans must 

demonstrate that counsel’s performance fell below an objective 

standard of reasonableness under prevailing professional norms. 

Id. at 688. The prejudice prong is satisfied, within the 

context of a guilty plea, if Evans can demonstrate “a reasonable 

probability that, but for counsel’s errors, he would not have 

pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial.” Hill 

v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 59 (1985). 

Unless an attorney’s ineffectiveness conclusively appears 

on the face of the record, such claims are not generally 

addressed on direct appeal, United States v. Benton, 523 F.3d 

424, 435 (4th Cir. 2008), but rather should be raised in a 

motion brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (2012), in order to 

permit sufficient development of the record. United States v. 

Baptiste, 596 F.3d 214, 216 n.1 (4th Cir. 2010). Because the 

record does not conclusively establish ineffective assistance of 

counsel, we conclude that Evans should raise these claims, if at 

all, in a § 2255 motion.

Finally, Evans contends that prosecutorial misconduct 

occurred throughout the proceedings. We find no support in the 

record for his claims.
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In accordance with Anders, we have reviewed the entire 

record in this case and have found no meritorious issues for 

appeal.* We therefore affirm Evans’ convictions and sentence. 

This court requires that counsel inform Evans, in writing, of 

the right to petition the Supreme Court of the United States for 

further review. If Evans requests that a petition be filed, but 

counsel believes that such a petition would be frivolous, then 

counsel may move in this court for leave to withdraw from 

representation. Counsel’s motion must state that a copy thereof 

was served on Evans. 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 

 * Evans filed a pro se supplemental brief asserting numerous 

challenges to his guilty plea and sentence. We have reviewed 

Evans’ pro se supplemental brief and conclude that he is not 

entitled to relief on any of the claims raised.