United States of America v. Rashad Jamal Blanchard

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 24-4631
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
RASHAD JAMAL BLANCHARD,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at
Charlotte. Robert J. Conrad, Jr., District Judge. (3:23-cr-00120-RJC-SCR-1)
Submitted: June 25, 2026 Decided: June 29, 2026
Before BENJAMIN and BERNER, Circuit Judges, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ON BRIEF: Jennifer Coulter, COULTER LAW OFFICE, Charlotte, North Carolina, for
Appellant. Amy Elizabeth Ray, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE
UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Asheville, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Rashad Jamal Blanchard pled guilty, pursuant to a written plea agreement, to
possession with intent to distribute at least 50 grams of actual methamphetamine, in
violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A). The district court imposed a
below-Guidelines sentence of 240 months’ imprisonment, to be followed by five years of
supervised release. On appeal, Blanchard’s counsel has filed a brief pursuant to Anders v.
California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), asserting that there are no meritorious grounds for appeal
but questioning whether Blanchard knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to appeal
and whether his below-Guidelines sentence is substantively reasonable.1 Specifically,
counsel argues that the district court should have imposed a downward variant sentence of
180 months, instead of 240 months. Although informed of his right to do so, Blanchard
has not filed a pro se supplemental brief.
“We review the reasonableness of a sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) using an
abuse-of-discretion standard.” United States v. Nance, 957 F.3d 204, 212 (4th Cir. 2020).
We must first “evaluate procedural reasonableness, determining whether the district court
committed any procedural error, such as improperly calculating the [Sentencing]
Guidelines range, failing to consider the § 3553(a) factors, or failing to adequately explain
the chosen sentence.” Id. (citing Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007)). If “the
district court has not committed procedural error,” we then assess the substantive
1 Because the Government has not sought to enforce the appellate waiver, the waiver
does not preclude our review of Blanchard’s sentence. See United States v. Kim, 71 F.4th
155, 162 n.4 (4th Cir. 2023).

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reasonableness of the sentence. Id. Substantive reasonableness review “takes 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).” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). “Any sentence that is within or below
a properly calculated Guidelines range is presumptively [substantively] reasonable.”
United States v. Louthian, 756 F.3d 295, 306 (4th Cir. 2014). “Such a presumption can
only be rebutted by showing that the sentence is unreasonable when measured against the
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors.” Id.
With respect to the procedural reasonableness of Blanchard’s sentence, the district
court correctly calculated the Guidelines range, considered the parties’ arguments and
Blanchard’s individualized circumstances, allowed Blanchard to allocute, and explained
why the chosen sentence was appropriate. Thus, Blanchard’s sentence is procedurally
reasonable.
Turning to substantive reasonableness, the district court explained that the sentence
was necessary considering the seriousness of Blanchard’s offense and his increasingly
violent criminal history. Moreover, the court found that Blanchard contradicted the usual
recidivism statistics, noting that he had been committing increasingly serious and violent
crimes as he got older—from carjacking, to felon in possession of a firearm, to bank
robbery. We thus conclude that Blanchard fails to rebut the presumption of reasonableness
accorded his below-Guidelines sentence.

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In accordance with Anders, we have reviewed the entire record in this case and have
found no meritorious grounds for appeal.2 We therefore affirm the district court’s
judgment. This court requires that counsel inform Blanchard, in writing, of the right to
petition the Supreme Court of the United States for further review. If Blanchard 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 Blanchard.
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
2 We note that we considered whether the district court committed any error in
violation of our United States v. Rogers, 961 F.3d 291 (4th Cir. 2020), jurisprudence, and
we concluded that there was no Rogers error in this case. In particular, although the written
judgment contained additional language in the special supervised release condition related
to mental health treatment that was not stated in the oral sentence, we concluded there was
no material discrepancy between the written judgment and the oral pronouncement. The
added language did not impose any additional obligation on Blanchard but rather clarified
details that reasonably could be expected to flow from the oral pronouncement. See, e.g.,
United States v. Aborisade, 163 F.4th 856, 866 (4th Cir. 2026); United States v. Mathis,
103 F.4th 193, 198 (4th Cir. 2024).

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