US v. Demichael Peeples

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 25-4527

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

DEMICHAEL J. PEEPLES, a/k/a Breezo,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at
Newport News. Arenda L. Wright Allen, Senior District Judge. (4:21-cr-00066-AWA-
LRL-1)

Submitted: July 23, 2026 Decided: July 27, 2026

Before WYNN and HARRIS, Circuit Judges, and FLOYD, Senior Circuit Judge.

Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ON BRIEF: Geremy C. Kamens, Federal Public Defender, Patrick L. Bryant, Assistant
Federal Public Defender, Andrew W. Grindrod, Assistant Federal Public Defender,
OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant.
Todd W. Blanche, Deputy Attorney General, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
JUSTICE, Washington, D.C.; D. Mack Coleman, Assistant United States Attorney,
OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Newport News, Virginia, for
Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:
Demichael J. Peeples appeals the sentence imposed after the district court revoked
Peeples’ supervised release. The district court sentenced Peeples to six months in prison,
to be followed by a three-year term of supervised release, “minus six months, which shall
include the same conditions as [Peeples’] previous period of supervised release.” United
States v. Peeples, No. 4:21-cr-00066-AWA-LRL-1 (E.D. Va., PACER No. 75 at 3). The
district court also added two new discretionary release conditions, including “6 months of
home confinement.” Peeples, PACER No. 87 at 44. Relying on this court’s decision in
United States v. Rogers, 961 F.3d 291 (4th Cir. 2020), Peeples asserts that the district court
reversibly erred when it later included in the written criminal judgment home confinement
conditions that it did not mention at sentencing. The Government concedes. We agree
with the parties and therefore vacate and remand for resentencing.
Rule 43(a)(3) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure requires a criminal
defendant to be present at sentencing. “[B]ecause a defendant has a right to be present
when he is sentenced, a district court must orally pronounce all non-mandatory conditions
of supervised release at the sentencing hearing.” United States v. Singletary, 984 F.3d 341,
344 (4th Cir. 2021) (citing to Rogers, 961 F.3d at 296-99). This requirement “is not a
meaningless formality.” Id. at 346 (internal quotation marks omitted). It is “a critical part
of the defendant’s right to be present at sentencing” because the defendant can only have
an opportunity to object to a discretionary condition of supervised release if she or he is
present when the condition is imposed. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

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Thus, a district court errs when it fails to pronounce orally at sentencing all
discretionary supervised release conditions subsequently imposed in the written judgment.
Rogers, 961 F.3d at 300. A Rogers error also occurs when there is “a material discrepancy
between a discretionary condition as pronounced and as detailed in a written judgment.”
United States v. Mathis, 103 F.4th 193, 197 (4th Cir. 2024) (internal quotation marks
omitted). For a material discrepancy constituting a Rogers-Singletary error, there is “only
one option—vacate and remand for a full resentencing.” Id. at 199-200.
Here, both parties agree that there is a material discrepancy between the district
court’s oral pronouncement of Peeples’ discretionary conditions of supervised release at
sentencing and in the written judgment. During Peeples’ sentencing, the district court
orally pronounced as a discretionary condition of supervised release that Peeples must be
placed on home confinement. This condition is listed in the written judgment, but the
judgment also requires that “location monitoring technology [is] to be used . . . at the
discretion of the supervising officer,” and that Peeples must “pay all or part of the costs of
participation in the location monitoring program as directed by the court and the
supervising officer.” Peeples, PACER No. 75 at 3. Because the district court did not orally
pronounce these additional conditions at sentencing, we conclude that the court’s
omissions constitute error under Rogers and Singletary that warrants resentencing.
Indeed, the discrepancy between the supervised release conditions as orally
pronounced and those listed in the written judgment in this case is similar to that examined
in Mathis. In that case, the district court orally imposed a warrantless search requirement
on a defendant at the sentencing hearing and then added an additional requirement in the

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written judgment that the defendant also “warn other occupants that the premises may be
subject to searches[.]” Mathis, 103 F.4th at 198. On appeal, this court concluded that the
added warning requirement was “inconsistent with the oral pronouncement and constitutes
reversible error.” Id. Bound by Rogers and Singletary, we recognized that the court’s
“only . . . option” was to “vacate and remand for a full resentencing.” Id. at 200. Our
precedents mandate the same outcome here. See United States v. Kemp, 88 F.4th 539, 547
(4th Cir. 2023) (“[D]efendants who succeed on Rogers claims are entitled to a full vacatur
of their sentences and remand for resentencing if they so request.” (internal quotation
marks omitted)).
For the reasons stated, we vacate Peeples’ sentence and remand the case to the
district court for resentencing. 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.
VACATED AND REMANDED