UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 14-4472
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
RONALD SNYDER, a/k/a Ronald McCarty,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern
District of West Virginia, at Elkins. John Preston Bailey,
District Judge. (2:13-cr-00048-JPB-JSK-1)
Submitted: May 11, 2015 Decided: May 26, 2015
Before MOTZ, AGEE, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed in part, vacated in part and remanded by unpublished
per curiam opinion.
Charles T. Berry, Fairmont, West Virginia, for Appellant.
William J. Ihlenfeld, II, United States Attorney, Shawn Angus
Morgan, Assistant United States Attorney, Clarksburg, West
Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Ronald Snyder appeals his sentence of twenty-four months
imprisonment and five years of supervised release following his
guilty plea to failure to register as required by the Sex
Offender Registration and Notification Act (“SORNA”), in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a) (2012). On appeal, counsel has
filed a brief pursuant to Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738
(1967), questioning whether venue in the Northern District of
West Virginia was improper and whether SORNA is impermissibly
vague as it applies to Snyder. In supplemental briefs, the
parties agreed that, in light of a clarifying Sentencing
Guideline amendment enacted subsequent to Snyder’s sentencing,
the sex-offender-related special conditions of supervised
release do not apply to Snyder’s offense. For the reasons that
follow, we affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand for
further proceedings.
We review de novo a district court’s venue determination.
United States v. Jefferson, 674 F.3d 332, 364 (4th Cir. 2012).
Venue lies in the state and district where the offense was
“committed.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 3; Fed. R. Crim. P.
18. Where, as here, the criminal statute does not contain an
express venue provision, the court must determine venue by
considering “the nature of the crime alleged and the location of
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the act or acts constituting it.” United States v. Bowens, 224
F.3d 302, 308 (4th Cir. 2000) (internal quotation marks
omitted). A convicted sex offender’s act of interstate travel
both “serve[s] as a jurisdictional predicate for § 2250” and is
“the very conduct at which Congress took aim” in enacting the
statute. Carr v. United States, 560 U.S. 438, 454 (2010).
Snyder’s offense necessarily involved more than one
district because it required interstate travel, beginning when
he moved from West Virginia to North Carolina, which gave rise
to his obligation to register in either state, and ending when
he failed to register in either state. 42 U.S.C. § 16913(c)
(2012). Thus, venue in West Virginia was proper.
Snyder also argues, for the first time on appeal, that
SORNA’s registration requirements are unconstitutionally vague
as applied to transient sex offenders. We generally review a
defendant’s challenge to the constitutionality of a statute de
novo. United States v. Bostic, 168 F.3d 718, 721 (4th Cir.
1999). However, when the issue is not presented to the district
court, as is the case here, we review for plain error. United
States v. Strieper, 666 F.3d 288, 292 (4th Cir. 2012). Snyder
fails to satisfy his burden under the plain-error rule and,
therefore, is not entitled to relief. The statute here is
neither ambiguous nor vague, and our review of the record
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reveals that Snyder’s conduct clearly violated the registration
requirements.
We review for abuse of discretion special conditions of
supervised release. United States v. Dotson, 324 F.3d 256, 259
(4th Cir. 2003). In addition to the mandatory conditions
provided by the Guidelines, a district court may impose upon
supervised release other conditions that it deems appropriate,
“as long as that condition is ‘reasonably related’ to statutory
factors referred to in [18 U.S.C.] § 3583(d)(1).” Id. at 260;
see also U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 5D1.3(b) (2014).
Additionally, these other conditions must be consistent with the
Sentencing Commission’s policy statements. Dotson, 324 F.3d at
260-61; USSG § 5D1.3(b).
At sentencing in June 2014, the district court, without
objection, imposed a five-year term of supervised release, along
with several sex-offender-related special conditions recommended
in the presentence report. In November 2014, an amendment to
§ 5D1.2 became effective, stating that a SORNA violation is not
a sex offense. USSG § 5D1.2 cmt. n.1 (2014). We recently held
that this amendment was a clarifying, rather than substantive,
amendment. United States v. Collins, 773 F.3d 25, 31-32 (4th
Cir. 2014), cert. denied, __ S. Ct. __, 2015 WL 1121544 (U.S.
Apr. 20, 2015). “[C]larifying amendment[s] must be given effect
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at sentencing and on appeal, even when the sentencing court uses
an edition of the guidelines manual that predated adoption of
the amendment.” Id. at 32 (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted).
In this case, as in Collins, the district court did not
have the benefit of the Guidelines amendment at the time of
Snyder’s sentencing, which occurred more than four months before
the amendment became effective. “This Circuit’s practice is to
vacate and remand for resentencing when the Sentencing
Commission enacts a clarifying amendment.” Id.
We therefore vacate the supervised release portion of
Snyder’s sentence and remand for resentencing. In accordance
with Anders, we have reviewed the entire record in this case and
have found no other meritorious grounds for appeal.
Accordingly, we affirm all other aspects of the district court’s
judgment. This court requires that counsel inform Snyder, in
writing, of the right to petition the Supreme Court of the
United States for further review. If Snyder 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 Snyder. We dispense
with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are
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adequately presented in the materials before this court and
argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED IN PART;
VACATED IN PART;
AND REMANDED
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