UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 22-4583

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

DARIEL ALTAVIOUS LYLES,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at 

Charlotte. Max O. Cogburn, Jr., District Judge. (3:20-cr-00256-MOC-DSC-3)

Submitted: March 15, 2024 Decided: March 20, 2024

Before AGEE and WYNN, Circuit Judges, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ON BRIEF: Denzil H. Forrester, THE LAW OFFICES OF DENZIL H. FORRESTER, 

Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellant. Dena J. King, United States Attorney, Julia K. 

Wood, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES 

ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Dariel Altavious Lyles pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent 

to distribute methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), 846, and 

possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 

§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A). The district court sentenced Lyles to a below-SentencingGuidelines-range term of 120 months’ imprisonment and three years’ supervised release.1

 

Lyles timely appealed, and his counsel initially filed a brief pursuant to Anders v. 

California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), stating that there were no meritorious issues for appeal 

but questioning whether Lyles’ sentence was reasonable. Although notified of his right to 

do so, Lyles did not file a pro se supplemental brief, and the Government declined to file a 

response. Upon reviewing the record,2 we ordered the parties to file supplemental briefs 

addressing whether the inconsistency between the court’s oral pronouncement at 

sentencing of one of the discretionary conditions of supervised release and the written 

judgment constituted reversible error under United States v. Rogers, 961 F.3d 291 

(4th Cir. 2020). Having reviewed the parties’ submissions, we affirm.

We review “all sentences—whether inside, just outside, or significantly outside the 

[Sentencing] Guidelines range—under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard.” United 

1 Because Lyles received the benefit of the safety valve reduction, the district court 

was able to sentence him below the otherwise-operative statutory mandatory minimum of 

five years’ supervised release. See 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f).

2 Lyles’ written plea agreement included an appellate waiver. But because the 

Government did not move to enforce the waiver, we conducted a full review pursuant to 

Anders. See United States v. Poindexter, 492 F.3d 263, 271 (4th Cir. 2007).

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States v. Torres-Reyes, 952 F.3d 147, 151 (4th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). In conducting this review, we must first ensure that the sentence is procedurally 

reasonable, “consider[ing] whether the district court properly calculated the defendant’s 

advisory [G]uidelines range, gave the parties an opportunity to argue for an appropriate 

sentence, considered the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, and sufficiently explained the 

selected sentence.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). If the sentence is free of 

significant procedural error, we then review it for substantive reasonableness, “tak[ing] 

into account the totality of the circumstances to determine whether the sentencing court 

abused its discretion in concluding that the sentence it chose satisfied the standards set forth 

in § 3553(a).” United States v. Nance, 957 F.3d 204, 212 (4th Cir. 2020) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). “A sentence that is within or below a properly calculated Guidelines range 

is presumptively [substantively] reasonable.” United States v. Bennett, 986 F.3d 389, 401 

(4th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted). “On appeal, such a presumption can 

only be rebutted by showing that the sentence is unreasonable when measured against the 

§ 3553(a) factors.” Id. (cleaned up).

Here, the district court correctly calculated Lyles’ advisory Guidelines range, heard 

argument from counsel, provided Lyles an opportunity to allocute, considered the 

§ 3553(a) sentencing factors, and explained its reasons for imposing the chosen sentence. 

And because Lyles has not demonstrated that his sentence is unreasonable when measured 

against the § 3553(a) factors, he has failed to rebut the presumption of reasonableness 

afforded his below-Guidelines sentence. See id. We therefore conclude that Lyles’ 

sentence is both procedurally and substantively reasonable.

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Next, we review Lyles’ sentence for Rogers error. In Rogers, we held that the 

district court must orally announce all non-mandatory conditions of supervised release at 

the sentencing hearing. 961 F.3d at 296. “Discretionary conditions that appear for the first 

time in a subsequent written judgment . . . are nullities; the defendant has not been 

sentenced to those conditions, and a remand for resentencing is required.” United States v. 

Singletary, 984 F.3d 341, 344 (4th Cir. 2021). We “review the consistency of the 

defendant’s oral sentence and the written judgment de novo.” United States v. Cisson, 33 

F.4th 185, 193 (4th Cir. 2022) (cleaned up).

In his supplemental brief, Lyles argues that the district court committed Rogers error 

because the description of the first non-mandatory supervised release condition in the 

written judgment materially differs from the court’s oral pronouncement of that condition 

at sentencing. At sentencing, the district court ordered that, upon his release from custody, 

Lyles was to report to the probation office in the federal judicial “district to which [he] is 

released.” (J.A. 111).3

 The judgment, however, instructed Lyles to report to the probation 

office in the “district where he[] is authorized to reside.” (J.A. 118). Lyles asserts that this 

facial discrepancy constitutes Rogers error.

To be sure, a material discrepancy between a discretionary condition as pronounced 

and as detailed in a written judgment may constitute Rogers error. See Cisson, 33 F.4th 

at 191, 194 & n.6. However, Lyles has failed to demonstrate that the oral and written 

judgments are reversibly inconsistent under Rogers. The district court at sentencing not 

3 “J.A.” refers to the Joint Appendix filed by the parties in this appeal.

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only ordered Lyles to report to the district to which he is released, but also orally 

pronounced through incorporation the standard conditions listed in the Western District of 

North Carolina’s standing order—which included the condition that Lyles report to the 

probation office in the district where he is authorized to reside. Thus, the orally announced 

sentence was ambiguous as to the reporting requirement. And “where the precise contours 

of an oral sentence are ambiguous, we may look to the written judgment to clarify the 

district court’s intent.” Rogers, 961 F.3d at 299. We are therefore satisfied that the written 

judgment’s inclusion of the reporting condition listed in the district’s standing order “may 

be construed fairly as a clarification of an otherwise vague oral pronouncement,” 

confirming the court’s intent to require Lyles to report to the probation office in the district 

where he is authorized to reside. Id.

Accordingly, we affirm the criminal judgment. This court requires that counsel 

inform Lyles, in writing, of the right to petition the Supreme Court of the United States for 

further review. If Lyles 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 Lyles.

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

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