United States v. Raymond Roe, 669 F. App'x 638

Raymond D. Roe was on federal supervised release and pleaded guilty in West Virginia to possession of material depicting a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
The government alleged Roe violated his supervised release based on that state conviction and related conduct (attempting to access child pornography on a public library computer).
The district court revoked supervised release and sentenced Roe to 24 months’ imprisonment (above the Chapter 7 policy range).
Roe appealed, arguing (1) the state guilty plea did not prove a violation of state law and (2) the 24-month revocation sentence was plainly unreasonable and based primarily on an improper factor (the seriousness of the state offense).
The Fourth Circuit reviewed factual findings for clear error and the sentence for reasonableness, considering Chapter 7 policy statements and 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e) / § 3553(a) factors.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Roe’s state guilty plea proved a supervised-release violation	Roe: plea did not prove violation of state law; so revocation improper	Gov: state guilty plea is an admission of factual guilt; preponderance standard met	Court: No clear error; plea/admissions satisfied preponderance standard; revocation affirmed
Whether 24-month revocation sentence was procedurally reasonable	Roe: court relied impermissibly on seriousness of state offense; sentence thus improper	Gov: court considered Chapter 7, §3553(a) factors and permissibly weighed seriousness among others	Court: Procedurally reasonable; court stated permissible reasons and acknowledged departure from policy range
Whether 24-month sentence was substantively/plainly unreasonable	Roe: sentence was driven by a prohibited or determinative factor and thus plainly unreasonable	Gov: sentence within statutory range and supported by defendant’s pattern of conduct and breach of trust	Court: Substantively reasonable; not plainly unreasonable given facts and discretion to revoke up to statute maximum
Standard of review for factual findings and sentence	Roe: (implicit) errors in factual findings and sentencing analysis	Gov: factual findings reviewed for clear error; sentence reviewed for plain unreasonableness within statutory bounds	Court: Applied clear-error to facts and reasonableness framework to sentence; affirmed

United States v. Pregent, 190 F.3d 279 (4th Cir. 1999) (standard of review for supervised-release revocation)
United States v. Copley, 978 F.2d 829 (4th Cir. 1992) (preponderance standard required to revoke supervised release)
United States v. Manigan, 592 F.3d 621 (4th Cir. 2010) (definition of preponderance of the evidence)
United States v. White, 620 F.3d 401 (4th Cir. 2010) (clear-error review of factual findings)
United States v. Harvey, 532 F.3d 326 (4th Cir. 2008) (definition of clear error standard)
State ex rel. Burton v. Whyte, 256 S.E.2d 424 (W. Va. 1979) (guilty plea treated as admission of factual guilt under West Virginia law)
United States v. Crudup, 461 F.3d 433 (4th Cir. 2006) (reasonableness review for supervised-release revocation sentences)