Court Opinion

ID: 9881568
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-03 14:00:30.072371+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:17:28.614489
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-10742    Document: 38-1      Date Filed: 10/03/2023   Page: 1 of 18

                                                              [PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-10742
                           ____________________

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
        versus
        HENRY MARTIN STEIGER,
        a.k.a. Henry Matthew Steiger,
        a.k.a. H M Steiger,
        a.k.a. Robert Woods,

                                                    Defendant-Appellant.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Northern District of Florida
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        2                         Opinion of the Court                      22-10742

                          D.C. Docket No. 3:17-cr-00043-RV-2
                               ____________________

        Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judge, and
        COOGLER,* Chief District Judge.
        COOGLER, Chief District Judge:
               Henry Steiger appeals his sentence of 20 years of imprison-
        ment following the revocation of his probation pursuant to 18
        U.S.C. § 3565. Steiger argues that, where the Sentencing Guidelines
        recommended a sentence of 12 to 18 months of imprisonment, his
        sentence is procedurally and substantively unreasonable. One of
        his arguments is that the district court failed to give a speciﬁc rea-
        son for imposing an upward variance to the statutory maximum,
        in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c)(2). Based upon this Court’s prec-
        edents, we vacate and remand for resentencing.
                                    I. BACKGROUND
                In September 2017, Steiger pleaded guilty to one count of
        conspiracy to commit wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343
        and 1349, and three counts of wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
        §§ 1343 and 2. Steiger’s presentence investigation report (“PSI”)
        noted that the statutory imprisonment range on each count was 20
        years, for a total maximum of 80 years. The PSI calculated a guide-
        line imprisonment range of zero to six months. Further, the PSI

        * Honorable L. Scott Coogler, Chief United States District Judge for the North-
        ern District of Alabama, sitting by designation.
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        22-10742               Opinion of the Court                          3

        noted that because all four counts were Class C Felonies, Steiger
        was eligible for one to ﬁve years of probation under 18 U.S.C. §
        3561(c)(1). In December 2017, the district court sentenced Steiger
        to three years of probation.
                In September 2019, the United States Probation Oﬃce ﬁled
        a petition for revocation of Steiger’s probation, alleging that Steiger
        had committed nine violations. At the revocation proceeding con-
        ducted in February 2022, the government explained that it would
        proceed only on the eighth violation, which was premised on the
        fact that Steiger had been convicted in Florida state court in June
        2019 of one count of second-degree murder.
                At the revocation proceeding, United States Probation Of-
        ﬁcer Kailey Minnick testiﬁed that Steiger began his probation sen-
        tence in December 2017 and was under Minnick’s supervision
        when he was charged by the State of Florida with committing a
        murder in February 2018. After Steiger’s arrest, he pleaded not
        guilty, and after a trial, was found guilty of one count of second-
        degree murder in August 2019. The court sentenced Steiger to life
        in prison. Steiger appealed his conviction. The Florida First District
        Court of Appeal aﬃrmed his conviction.
               In the revocation proceeding, Minnick read the following
        summary of the facts of the crime from the Florida appellate
        court’s opinion. Steiger and the mother of his child, Cassandra
        Robinson, had a disagreement on February 1, 2018, and Robinson’s
        family later reported her missing as of that date. Steiger’s business
        associate, Julian Mesure, told law enforcement oﬃcers that Steiger
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        4                       Opinion of the Court                  22-10742

        had implied to Mesure that Steiger had killed Robinson and that he
        helped Steiger move items, including a 55-gallon drum, to Steiger’s
        trailer and helped dispose of Robinson’s iPad and iPod. In July 2018,
        investigators located Robinson’s decomposing body inside the 55-
        gallon drum, inside Steiger’s trailer. The medical examiner con-
        cluded that her manner of death was homicide. The date of the
        killing was February 1, 2018, which was Steiger and Robinson’s
        daughter’s ﬁrst birthday. When Mesure had been questioned by law
        enforcement, he said Steiger talked to him about the plan to kill
        Robinson and just needed to decide the “‘when and where.’” Once
        he had decided, Steiger asked Mesure to climb into the 55-gallon
        drum to see if he would ﬁt. Steiger had also demonstrated to
        Mesure a motion of choking with his hands and indicated the vic-
        tim was holding the baby when this happened.
               Minnick continued with the following facts from the Florida
        appellate court’s opinion. Steiger testiﬁed at his trial that on the day
        of the birthday, Steiger found Robinson in the laundry room with
        a bag over her head and rope around her neck and believed she had
        committed suicide. He testiﬁed that he attempted to revive her but
        was unsuccessful and admitted that he did not call 911 or seek any
        medical assistance. He also admitted that his conduct afterwards of
        placing her inside the barrel was in an eﬀort to “‘cover my tracks
        more like a guilty person.’” He denied making comments about
        the “when and where” and demonstrating the choking motion to
        Mesure. He testiﬁed that he did not come forward about the death
        because he wanted to maintain custody of his daughter.
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        22-10742               Opinion of the Court                        5

                Minnick further testiﬁed that Steiger had argued to the Flor-
        ida appellate court, and subsequently to the Supreme Court of
        Florida, that his attorneys were ineﬀective in their representation
        at his trial, but that the Supreme Court of Florida aﬃrmed the ap-
        pellate court’s refusal to consider the claim because Steiger had not
        preserved it for appeal.
               After the probation oﬃcer’s testimony concluded, Steiger’s
        counsel informed the district court that Steiger was working with
        retained counsel on a post-conviction motion to raise an ineﬀective
        assistance of counsel claim and that he maintained his innocence
        to the murder charge.
               The district court found that Steiger violated the conditions
        of his probation by committing the new crime as charged in the
        violation. The court revoked Steiger’s probation and heard argu-
        ment from the parties as to the sentence. Noting that Steiger had
        been trusted to be on probation for a term of three years, the gov-
        ernment argued that Steiger then committed the most egregious
        of oﬀenses while on probation. The government noted that while
        the guideline range was 12 to 18 months, that range greatly under-
        stated the seriousness of the new law violation, and it noted that
        the court, in its discretion, could impose a sentence of 20 years of
        imprisonment for each of the four oﬀenses with a maximum of 80
        years. In response, Steiger’s counsel argued that the district court
        should sentence him to time served because Steiger’s criminal his-
        tory category was a I when he was originally sentenced, which
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                22-10742

        meant that his original guideline range was zero to six months, and
        he had already been in prison for over three years.
                The court gave Steiger the opportunity to allocute, at which
        time Steiger argued that his trial counsel was constitutionally inef-
        fective, that he was conﬁdent that he would receive a new trial, and
        that the Florida appellate court’s opinion contained an inaccurate
        summary of the facts of the case, which could be clariﬁed with the
        trial record.
               In reply, the government reminded the district court that the
        Florida First District Court of Appeal was able to review the entire
        transcript and record and noted that Steiger did not dispute that he
        put Robinson’s body in a barrel for months.
              The district court then stated the following:
                     In determining an appropriate sentence, I have
              carefully considered not only the evidence that I’ve
              heard here today but also the matters presented dur-
              ing the course of the trial in the underlying case.
                     There was a lot of question about determining
              who was telling the truth in that case. And the real
              unusual thing about that case is that it ended up with
              the object of the alleged fraud, the app itself being
              destroyed and therefore having no value, which re-
              sulted in a very low oﬀense level for you and your
              codefendants in that case, and a probation sentence
              for you in response to a substantial assistance motion
              ﬁled by the government as well.
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        22-10742              Opinion of the Court                          7

                    I do know, Mr. Steiger, you’re a very smart
              man, and it’s sad that you have ended up standing be-
              fore me as you are currently.
                     But I have fully considered all of the factors set
              out in Title 18, United States Code, Section 3553(a),
              as well as the applicable guidelines and policy state-
              ments from the United States Sentencing Commis-
              sion and the decisions of the courts about sentencing
              under these circumstances, including decisions by the
              Supreme Court of the United States.
                     So, under the authority of the Sentencing Re-
              form Act of 1984 and its amendments, it is the judg-
              ment of the Court that you’re hereby committed to
              the custody of the Bureau of Prisons to be impris-
              oned for a term of 20 years on each count, each of the
              four counts, to be served concurrently one with the
              other. And this sentence of 20 years shall be served
              concurrently with the sentence imposed by the State
              of Florida in your murder trial case, that’s Case No.
              2018CF004365A.
              The district court then asked whether either counsel had
        “any objections to any of my ﬁndings or conclusions of law or an-
        ything that needs to be ampliﬁed on the record with regard to the
        sentence I’ve imposed?” Neither counsel objected on any ground.
              Steiger appealed.
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        8                          Opinion of the Court                       22-10742

                            II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
               If a defendant fails to speciﬁcally object at the time of sen-
        tencing to the procedural reasonableness of the sentence imposed
        by the district court, this Court reviews for plain error. United States
        v. Vandergrift, 754 F.3d 1303, 1307 (11th Cir. 2014). However, this
        Court reviews de novo whether the district court stated a speciﬁc
        reason for imposing a sentence outside the guideline range as re-
        quired by 18 U.S.C. § 3553(c)(2), even when the defendant did not
        object on this ground before the district court, because the claim
        can be evaluated on a silent record. United States v. Parks, 823 F.3d
        990, 996 (11th Cir. 2016).
                                     III. DISCUSSION
                Upon ﬁnding that a defendant violated a condition of proba-
        tion, a district court may revoke the term of probation and impose
        a term of imprisonment, as long as the court considers the factors
        set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), such as the need for the sentence
        imposed to reﬂect the “seriousness of the oﬀense” and “aﬀord ad-
        equate deterrence,” among others. 18 U.S.C. § 3565. 1 The district

        1 In sentencing a probation violator, a district court is not restricted to the
        Sentencing Guidelines range applicable at the time of the initial sentencing
        hearing. United States v. Cook, 291 F.3d 1297, 1300 (11th Cir. 2002) (per curiam)
        (citing 18 U.S.C. § 3565(a)(2)). For revocations, the Sentencing Commission
        has promulgated policy statements that include a table with terms of impris-
        onment for defendants whose probation periods have been revoked based
        upon the grade of the probation violation and the defendant’s criminal history
        at the time of the original sentencing hearing. Id. at 1301 (citing U.S.S.G. §
        7B1.4). And while the sentencing judge may choose a specific penalty from the
        guideline range, he also has the authority to impose a sentence outside the
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        22-10742                  Opinion of the Court                              9

        court commits a “signiﬁcant procedural error” in imposing a sen-
        tence if it calculates the guidelines incorrectly, fails to consider the
        § 3553(a) factors, bases the sentence on clearly erroneous facts, or,
        of particular relevance here, “fail[s] to adequately explain the cho-
        sen sentence—including an explanation for any deviation from the
        Guidelines range.” Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007).
                Section 3553(c)(2) also provides that if the district court im-
        poses a sentence outside of the guideline range, it must state in
        open court the speciﬁc reason for imposing that sentence. 18 U.S.C.
        § 3553(c)(2). To satisfy § 3553(c)(2), “[t]he district court’s reasons
        must be suﬃciently speciﬁc so that an appellate court can engage
        in the meaningful review envisioned by the Sentencing Guide-
        lines.” Parks, 823 F.3d at 997 (quotation omitted). The requirement
        that a court explain a non-guideline sentence is also important for
        the defendant and the public to understand why the defendant re-
        ceived the sentence. Id. & n.30. If the district court does not state a
        speciﬁc reason, remand for resentencing is required. Id. at 997.
               Steiger does not cite § 3553(c)(2) or this Court’s opinion in
        Parks in his appellate brief. However, because one of Steiger’s argu-
        ments is that his sentence should be vacated and remanded because
        the district court did not state a reason for the upward variance to
        the statutory maximum, the issue is properly before this Court.
        And pursuant to Parks, we must review this claim de novo, even

        guideline range because he chooses to “vary” from the guidelines by not ap-
        plying them. See United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 258–65 (2005) (holding
        the Sentencing Guidelines are advisory).
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        10                       Opinion of the Court                    22-10742

        though Steiger’s counsel did not object on this ground at the con-
        clusion of the revocation proceeding. See Parks, 823 F.3d at 996.
               The record reﬂects that the district court did not give any
        reason for why it was imposing an above-guideline sentence. The
        government urges that we can look to the context and record from
        the entire revocation proceeding to glean the reasoning for the sen-
        tence imposed. According to the government, because the facts
        surrounding the murder, which formed the basis of the probation
        violation, were so heinous, the district court didn’t have to say
        much. In support, the government primarily relies upon Rita v.
        United States, 551 U.S. 338 (2007), and Chavez-Meza v. United States,
        138 S. Ct. 1959 (2018). In Rita, the Supreme Court held that an ex-
        tensive explanation is not required when a case is “conceptually
        simple” and the record reveals that the court considered the evi-
        dence and arguments. 551 U.S. at 359. In Chavez-Meza, the Court
        reiterated that “[j]ust how much of an explanation” is required “de-
        pends . . . upon the circumstances of the particular case” and that
        sometimes it is enough “that the judge simply relied upon the rec-
        ord, while making clear that he or she has considered the parties’
        arguments and taken account of the § 3553(a) factors, among oth-
        ers.” 138 S. Ct. at 1965. However, this case diﬀers from Rita and
        Chavez-Meza in the signiﬁcant respect that the district courts in
        those cases imposed within-guidelines sentences. See Rita, 551 U.S.
        at 345; Chavez-Meza, 138 S. Ct. at 1965. 2 The Court in Rita explained

        2 The defendant in Rita, convicted of perjury, making false statements, and
        obstructing justice, sought a sentence lower than the recommended guideline
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        22-10742                   Opinion of the Court                               11

        that a district court need not give a lengthy explanation for a guide-
        lines sentence because “[c]ircumstances may well make clear that
        the judge rests his decision upon the Commission’s own reasoning
        that the Guidelines sentence is a proper sentence . . . in the typical
        case, and that the judge has found that the case before him is typi-
        cal.” 551 U.S. at 356–57.
                Meanwhile, this Court’s precedents establish that when a
        district court imposes an above-guideline sentence, as the court did
        here, a speciﬁc statement of explanation is required. Parks, 823 F.3d
        at 997 (“The burdens facing a busy district court are real, but the
        text of § 3553(c)(2) imposes a mandatory obligation.”). Further, this
        Court has “adopted a per se rule of reversal for § 3553(c)(2) errors.”

        range of 33 to 41 months based on his physical condition, military experience,
        and vulnerability in prison. 551 U.S. at 342, 344–45. The district court listened
        to his arguments but concluded that a sentence of 33 months was “‘appropri-
        ate,’” which the Supreme Court held was a legally suﬃcient explanation in
        those circumstances. Id. at 344–45. The defendant in Chavez-Meza was con-
        victed of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and origi-
        nally sentenced to 135 months of imprisonment, the bottom of the guideline
        range (135 to 168 months). 138 S. Ct. at 1964. After the Sentencing Commis-
        sion reduced the guidelines range for certain drug oﬀenses, he ﬁled a motion
        for a sentence modiﬁcation. Id. The district court ordered that the defendant’s
        sentence be reduced to 114 months on a form issued by the Administrative
        Oﬃce of the United States Courts. Id. at 1965. Because the new sentence was
        not at the bottom end of the new guideline range—which would have been
        108 months—the defendant appealed, arguing that he should have received a
        greater reduction and that the district court did not adequately explain the
        sentence. See id. at 1963, 1966. The Supreme Court rejected this argument,
        noting the “simplicity” of the case and the fact that the same judge had sen-
        tenced the defendant originally and was aware of his arguments. Id. at 1967.
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        12                        Opinion of the Court                      22-10742

        Id. If the district court does not fulﬁll its “obligation . . . to explain
        deviations from the guideline sentencing range, see 18 U.S.C.
        § 3553(c)(2), so that [this C]ourt can determine whether the depar-
        ture was justiﬁed,” the case “must be remanded for resentencing.”
        Id. & n.31 (quotation omitted) (citing United States v. Williams, 438
        F.3d 1272, 1274 (11th Cir. 2006) (per curiam) (stating that it is the
        “duty of this Court” to vacate and remand when the district court
        does not comply with § 3553(c))).
                The district court’s statements at the conclusion of the rev-
        ocation proceeding, quoted above, are not suﬃciently speciﬁc to
        allow this Court to understand why the district court imposed an
        above-guideline sentence. Although the district court likely consid-
        ered the heinous nature of Steiger’s conduct as a reason for the up-
        ward variance, and we thus feel certain that we know what the dis-
        trict court will say on remand, we must nonetheless hold that, in
        light of this Court’s precedents, the district court failed to comply
        with § 3553(c)(2), which requires vacatur and remand.3

        3 Because we vacate and remand for resentencing, we need not reach the mer-
        its of Steiger’s other procedural unreasonableness claim or consider whether
        Steiger’s sentence is also substantively unreasonable. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 51
        (“Assuming that the district court’s sentencing decision is procedurally sound,
        the appellate court should then consider the substantive reasonableness of the
        sentence imposed under an abuse-of-discretion standard.”).
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        22-10742           Opinion of the Court                    13

                            IV. CONCLUSION
              We VACATE Steiger’s sentence and REMAND for resen-
        tencing.
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        22-10742              PRYOR, C.J., Concurring                         1

        WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, Concurring:
                I join the panel opinion in full because it correctly applies
        our precedent. I write separately because we should rehear this ap-
        peal en banc to reconsider United States v. Parks, which requires a
        “per se rule of reversal for [section] 3553(c)(2) errors” even when
        the defendant never objected to the explanation of his sentence in
        the district court. 823 F.3d 990, 996–97 (11th Cir. 2016). We should
        treat section 3553(c) challenges like all other procedural sentencing
        challenges, which we review for plain error when the defendant
        never objects in the district court. See United States v. Vandergrift,
        754 F.3d 1303, 1307 (11th Cir. 2014).
                Ordinarily, “[i]f a litigant believes that an error has occurred
        (to his detriment) during a federal judicial proceeding, he must ob-
        ject in order to preserve the issue.” Puckett v. United States, 556 U.S.
        129, 134 (2009); see FED. R. CRIM P. 51(b). If a defendant fails to do
        so, we review his objection on appeal for plain error only. Puckett,
        556 U.S. at 134–35; FED. R. CRIM. P. 52(b). This rule, which “strictly
        circumscribe[s]” our review of unpreserved objections, Puckett, 556
        U.S. at 134, “is founded upon considerations of fairness to the court
        and to the parties and of the public interest in bringing litigation to
        an end after fair opportunity has been aﬀorded to present all issues
        of law and fact,” United States v. Atkinson, 297 U.S. 157, 159 (1936).
        The rule applies across the board except with respect to the narrow
        class of “structural errors undermining the fairness of a criminal
        proceeding as a whole.” United States v. Dominguez Benitez, 542 U.S.
        74, 81 (2004). The rule is especially crucial with respect to
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        2                      PRYOR, C.J., Concurring                22-10742

        procedural errors because “the district court can often correct or
        avoid the mistake [if the litigant raises it] so that it cannot possibly
        aﬀect the ultimate outcome” and require correction on appeal.
        Puckett, 556 U.S. at 134. And we apply the rule to most procedural
        sentencing challenges, such as the consideration of improper sen-
        tencing factors. Vandergrift, 754 F.3d at 1307.
               The plain-error rule should apply also to an allegation on
        appeal that the district court did not “state in open court the rea-
        sons for its imposition of [a] particular sentence” or the “speciﬁc
        reason” for a sentence that varies from the guideline range. 18
        U.S.C. § 3553(c). Nothing in the text of the Federal Rules of Crim-
        inal Procedure suggests that an objection based on this statute is
        diﬀerent from any other “claim of error.” See FED. R. CRIM. P. 51(b)
        (“A party may preserve a claim of error by informing the court” of
        the objection or requested action “when the court ruling or order
        is made or sought.”). No one suggests that a failure to explain a
        sentence is a structural error not susceptible of harmlessness re-
        view. And there is nothing unique about a section 3553(c) objection
        that suggests an exception from the plain-error rule. As the Second
        Circuit has explained, the “long-standing requirements [of section
        3553(c)] present no novel or complex issues” that are not apparent
        in the moment. United States v. Villafuerte, 502 F.3d 204, 211 (2d Cir.
        2007).
                The district court is “better positioned to articulate its rea-
        sons during the ﬁrst sentencing hearing rather than long after the
        fact.” Id. Contemporaneous objection develops the record that we
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        22-10742               PRYOR, C.J., Concurring                           3

        need to evaluate the reasonableness of a sentence. See Parks, 823
        F.3d at 996. And encouraging contemporaneous objection also
        avoids the wasteful exercise that we see in this appeal.
               Today we vacate a sentence of a defendant who will almost
        certainly receive the same sentence—with an explanation we can
        all guess—years after the fact. But every other court of appeals to
        have spoken on the subject would apply plain-error review and
        likely aﬃrm the district court because Steiger’s substantial rights
        were not violated. See United States v. Gilman, 478 F.3d 440, 448 (1st
        Cir. 2007); Villafuerte, 502 F.3d at 211; United States v. Parker, 462 F.3d
        273, 278–79 (3d Cir. 2006); United States v. Lynn, 592 F.3d 572, 576–
        77 (4th Cir. 2010); United States v. Gore, 298 F.3d 322, 324–25 (5th Cir.
        2002); United States v. Eversole, 487 F.3d 1024, 1035 (6th Cir. 2007);
        United States v. Phelps, 536 F.3d 862, 866 (8th Cir. 2008); United States
        v. Vences, 169 F.3d 611, 613 (9th Cir. 1999); United States v. Romero,
        491 F.3d 1173, 1175–77 (10th Cir. 2007); United States v. Ransom, 756
        F.3d 770, 773 (D.C. Cir. 2014). We should join their ranks.
               Parks established a diﬀerent rule only because the panel was
        bound by United States v. Bonilla, 463 F.3d 1176, 1181 & n.3 (11th
        Cir. 2006), which itself relied on United States v. Williams, 438 F.3d
        1272, 1274 (11th Cir. 2006). See Parks, 823 F.3d at 995 & n.22. “Be-
        cause [section] 3553(c)(2) aﬃrmatively requires the district court to
        provide a speciﬁc reason for a non-guideline sentence,” Bonilla and
        Williams reasoned that a “silent record” would “reﬂect that the sen-
        tence is illegal for want of a required statement,” so no objection is
        necessary for record development. See Parks, 823 F.3d at 996. The
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        4                      PRYOR, C.J., Concurring                  22-10742

        Parks panel found this distinction “plausible” as a “possible” way to
        reconcile Bonilla and Williams with our general rule for procedural
        reasonableness challenges. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
        That distinction does not hold water outside the context of a
        panel’s obligation to reconcile conﬂicting panel precedents. See
        United States v. Hogan, 986 F.2d 1364, 1369 (11th Cir. 1993).
                Bonilla and Williams are wrong. We routinely apply plain-er-
        ror review even when a silent record would reveal that the district
        court committed an error of omission. For example, plain-error re-
        view applies to an objection that the district court failed its aﬃrm-
        ative obligation to “‘advise the defendant that the defendant has no
        right to withdraw [a] plea’” if the district court declines to apply
        the prosecution’s sentencing recommendation. Dominguez Benitez,
        542 U.S. at 80–83 (quoting FED. R. CRIM. P. 11(c)(3)(B)); see also
        Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 8–9 (1999) (plain-error rule applies
        to a failure to instruct the jury on an element of the oﬀense). And
        we review for plain error an unpreserved objection to a “fail[ure]
        to articulate any speciﬁc ﬁndings regarding the need to seal [an] or-
        der” in a criminal trial, United States v. Cordero, 7 F.4th 1058, 1066 n.8
        (11th Cir. 2021), even though the court “must articulate” those ﬁnd-
        ings on the record, United States v. Ochoa-Vasquez, 428 F.3d 1015,
        1030 (11th Cir. 2005).
                This appeal shows why we should reconsider Parks and the
        decisions on which it relied. As the panel opinion recounts, the dis-
        trict court revoked Steiger’s probation because he was convicted of
        brutally murdering the mother of his child and concealing her
USCA11 Case: 22-10742     Document: 38-1      Date Filed: 10/03/2023    Page: 18 of 18

        22-10742              PRYOR, C.J., Concurring                      5

        remains. We have no doubt that the district court on remand will
        say what we all know is true—that Steiger received a long federal
        sentence for his breach of probation terms because he committed
        what his own counsel conceded was the most egregious sort of
        breach of the trust that probation implies. But because of our “per
        se rule of reversal,” Parks, 823 F.3d at 997, this panel is forced to
        remand for a new sentencing hearing. We should abolish our idio-
        syncratic and unprincipled treatment of section 3553(c) errors.