UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-4903

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

DONNIE LOMACK MOYER,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle

District of North Carolina, at Greensboro. Catherine C. Eagles, 

District Judge. (1:14-cr-00029-CCE-1)

Submitted: June 22, 2015 Decided: July 16, 2015

Before SHEDD, KEENAN, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Sarah Jessica Farber, FARBER LAW FIRM, Raleigh, North Carolina, 

for Appellant. Robert Albert Jamison Lang, Assistant United States 

Attorney, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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

Donnie Lomack Moyer pled guilty, pursuant to a plea agreement, 

to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, in violation of 

18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (2012). The district court sentenced Moyer 

to 77 months’ imprisonment, the bottom of Moyer’s advisory 

Sentencing Guidelines range. 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 questioning whether 

Moyer’s sentence is substantively reasonable. Moyer has filed a 

pro se supplemental brief, also questioning the substantive 

reasonableness of his sentence and asserting that trial counsel 

rendered ineffective assistance. We affirm.

We review a sentence for reasonableness “under a deferential 

abuse-of-discretion standard.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 

38, 41 (2007). “Any sentence that is within or below a properly 

calculated Guidelines range is presumptively [substantively] 

reasonable. Such a presumption can only be rebutted by showing 

that the sentence is unreasonable when measured against the 18 

U.S.C. § 3553(a) [(2012)] factors.” United States v. Louthian, 

756 F.3d 295, 306 (4th Cir.) (citation omitted), cert. denied, 135 

S. Ct. 421 (2014). 

Moyer has not rebutted the presumption that his withinGuidelines sentence is substantively reasonable. The district 

court was sufficiently sensitive to the issues Moyer faced after 
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leaving the military, recommending that Moyer undergo 

psychological, behavioral, and substance abuse treatment while 

incarcerated. The court also reasonably concluded that Moyer’s 

declaration that he was a changed man did not square with Moyer’s 

recent spurt of criminal activity. Importantly, the court did not 

ignore counsel’s argument for a downward variance; rather, the 

court explicitly considered the mitigating factors when deciding 

to impose a sentence at the bottom of the advisory Guidelines 

range. Finally, it was well within the court’s discretion to 

impose this federal sentence for possession of a firearm

consecutively to Moyer’s state sentence for possession of 

marijuana. See U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 5G1.3(c), p.s.

(2013) (providing court discretion to run sentence consecutively 

to undischarged term of imprisonment when charges are unrelated).

In his pro se supplemental brief, Moyer raises a variety of 

ineffective assistance of counsel claims. Unless an attorney’s 

ineffectiveness conclusively appears on the face of the record, 

ineffective assistance claims are not generally addressed on 

direct appeal. United States v. Benton, 523 F.3d 424, 435 (4th 

Cir. 2008). Instead, such claims 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 there is no 

demonstrated evidence of ineffective assistance of counsel on the 
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face of the record, these claims should be raised, if at all, in 

a § 2255 motion.

In accordance with Anders, we have reviewed the entire record 

in this case and have found no meritorious grounds for appeal. We 

therefore affirm the district court’s judgment. This court 

requires that counsel inform Moyer, in writing, of his right to 

petition the Supreme Court of the United States for further review. 

If Moyer 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 Moyer. 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