United States v. William Gutierrez

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-4856

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

WILLIAM GUTIERREZ,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore. Catherine C. Blake, Chief District
Judge. (1:09-cr-00279-CCB-1)

Submitted: June 25, 2015 Decided: August 5, 2015

Before SHEDD, FLOYD, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

James Wyda, Federal Public Defender, Julie L.B. Johnson,
Appellate Attorney, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellant. Rod J.
Rosenstein, United States Attorney, Richard C. Kay, Assistant
United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:

William Gutierrez appeals the district court’s order

revoking his supervised release and sentencing him to 18 months’

imprisonment. Gutierrez contends that the district court

violated his due process rights by failing to adequately ensure

that he knowingly and voluntarily admitted to violating the

conditions of supervised release. For the reasons that follow,

we affirm.

Because Gutierrez did not raise any objections in the

district court to the adequacy of the district court’s inquiry

before accepting his admission to violating the conditions of

supervised release, our review is for plain error. See

Henderson v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 1121, 1126-27 (2013)

(explaining plain error review). “A defendant’s supervised

release cannot be revoked without a full hearing unless the

defendant knowingly and voluntarily admits to the allegations

against [him] and waives [his] rights under Rule 32.1 of the

Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.” United States v. Farrell,

393 F.3d 498, 500 (4th Cir. 2005). A knowing and voluntary

waiver of the right to a full revocation hearing may be inferred

from the totality of the circumstances and without a formal

colloquy with the defendant. Id.; see United States v. Stehl,

665 F.2d 58, 59-60 (4th Cir. 1981) (holding that Federal Rule of

2
Criminal Procedure 11 “has no application to [supervised

release] revocation proceedings”).

After a thorough review of the record, we conclude that the

totality of the circumstances indicates that Gutierrez’s

admission to the revocation violations was knowing and

voluntary. The court, therefore, did not err — plainly or

otherwise — by failing to explicitly inquire into the

voluntariness of the admission.

We therefore affirm the judgment. 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