United States of America v. Donovan Letrell Hall

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 17-4487
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
DONOVAN LETRELL HALL,
Defendant – Appellant.
On Remand from the Supreme Court of the United States.
(S. Ct. No. 17-9221)
Argued: May 4, 2023 Decided: June 2, 2023
Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, KING, Circuit Judge, and MOTZ, Senior Circuit Judge.
Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: Jaclyn L. Tarlton, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER,
Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. David A. Bragdon, OFFICE OF THE UNITED
STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: G. Alan
DuBois, Federal Public Defender, Louis C. Allen, Acting Federal Public Defender,
OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
Appellant. Robert J. Higdon, Jr., United States Attorney, Michael F. Easley, Jr., United
States Attorney, Jennifer P. May-Parker, Assistant United States Attorney, Kristine L.
Fritz, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES
ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Donovan Letrell Hall pleaded guilty in February 2017, in the Eastern District of
North Carolina, to a single count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in
contravention of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) (the “felon-in-possession offense”). In July 2017,
Hall was sentenced to 110 months in prison for that offense. On February 28, 2018, we
affirmed Hall’s conviction and sentence. See United States v. Hall, 725 F. App’x 210 (4th
Cir. 2018). In June 2019, the Supreme Court granted certiorari with respect to our decision,
vacated the judgment of affirmance, and remanded to us for further consideration of this
appeal in light of the Court’s decision in Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191 (2019).
See Hall v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2771 (2019).
Upon review of the record on appeal, the various appellate submissions of the
parties, and the oral argument of counsel, we are satisfied that Hall is not entitled to relief
under the Rehaif precedent. See 139 S. Ct. at 2197 (recognizing that the prosecution must
prove a mens rea element that the defendant knew he was a prohibited person when he
possessed a firearm). At bottom, Hall — with two previous North Carolina felony
convictions for which he served more than a year in custody — fails to demonstrate that
there is a “reasonable probability” he would not have pleaded guilty to the felon-in-
possession offense had “the [district court] . . . correctly advised him of the mens rea
element” thereof. See Greer v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 2090, 2097 (2021). Accordingly,
we are satisfied to again affirm Hall’s 2017 conviction on the felon-in-possession offense.
Our disposition of the Rehaif issue notwithstanding, we are also convinced that Hall
is now entitled to sentencing relief, pursuant to our Court’s recent decisions in United

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States v. Rogers, 961 F.3d 291 (4th Cir. 2020) (recognizing that all discretionary conditions
of supervised release must be orally pronounced at sentencing), and United States v.
Singletary, 984 F.3d 341 (4th Cir. 2021) (emphasizing that proper remedy for Rogers error
is plenary resentencing).1 As the government acknowledged during the oral argument in
Richmond, a Rogers error is readily apparent on this record, in that the district court failed
to orally pronounce 16 discretionary conditions of supervised release in Hall’s sentencing
proceedings. And our Singletary precedent provides — as the government also recognizes
— that the remedy for such a sentencing error is a plenary resentencing.2
Despite acknowledging the Rogers error, the government nevertheless insists that
sentencing relief for Hall on the Rogers error is foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s Rehaif-
related remand order. More specifically, the government interposes the “mandate rule”
and maintains that we are not entitled to consider or recognize the Rogers error in these
appeal proceedings. Put simply, and as explained below, we readily disagree.
As our Court has heretofore recognized, the mandate rule generally “forecloses
relitigation of issues expressly or impliedly decided by the appellate court.” See United
1 Although Rogers and Singletary had not been decided when Hall’s sentence on the
felon-in-possession offense was imposed by the district court in July 2017 — nor when we
initially resolved this appeal in February 2018 — those decisions are now the applicable
law of this circuit. And “on direct appeal ‘a court is to apply the law in effect at the time
it renders its decision.” See Lytle v. Comm’rs of Election of Union Cnty., 541 F.2d 421,
424 (4th Cir. 1976) (quoting Bradley v. Richmond Sch. Bd., 416 U.S. 696, 711 (1974)).
2 We appreciate and commend the government’s acknowledgment of the Rogers
error that we recognize in this appeal. That position is consistent with the principle that
the prosecution’s “interest . . . in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but
that justice shall be done.” See Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1935).

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States v. Bell, 5 F.3d 64, 66 (4th Cir. 1993). Notably, however, the mandate rule does not
apply in court of appeals proceedings when “extraordinary circumstances” are present. Id.
at 67. Such circumstances include those presented when “a blatant error in the prior
decision will, if uncorrected, result in a serious injustice.” Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted). That exception is satisfied here. Pursuant thereto, we are authorized to consider
— and correct — the blatant Rogers error arising from the multiple unannounced
discretionary conditions of supervised release that were erroneously included in Hall’s
2017 criminal judgment. As one of our sister courts of appeals recently emphasized, a
failure to announce such discretionary conditions at sentencing “is tantamount to
sentencing the defendant in absentia,” which is plainly impermissible. See United States
v. Diggles, 957 F.3d 551, 557 (5th Cir. 2020) (en banc) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Pursuant to the foregoing, we reinstate our February 28, 2018 decision with respect
to Hall’s conviction on the felon-in-possession offense, in that we are satisfied to reject his
assertion of a Rehaif error. On the other hand, we vacate Hall’s July 2017 sentence and
remand to the district court for such other and further sentencing proceedings as may be
appropriate.3
AFFIRMED IN PART,
VACATED IN PART, AND REMANDED
3 To complete the record, we grant Hall’s unopposed motion to file a supplemental
joint appendix. And we deny as moot Hall’s motion for summary disposition.

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