by Douglas Ankney

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated a defendant’s sentence and remanded for resentencing after concluding that the warrantless-search condition in the written judgment materially differed from what the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina orally announced during sentencing, constituting error under United States v. Rogers, 961 F.3d 291 (4th Cir. 2020), and United States v. Singletary, 984 F.3d 341 (4th Cir. 2021). The Court rejected each of the Government’s counterarguments. In a question of first impression, the Court also held that defendants raising Rogers–Singletary claims have standing to appeal based on those claims alone. Judge Rushing dissented.

Background

Amanda Marie Tostado pleaded guilty to two drug offenses. At her sentencing hearing, the District Court imposed 125 months of imprisonment and orally announced conditions of supervised release. Addressing warrantless searches, the court informed Tostado she must submit to such searches upon reasonable suspicion that she was violating the law or a condition of her release. The court then identified when a probation officer could search without reasonable suspicion, specifying one basis: “safety issues,” introduced with the phrase “for example.”

The written judgment, entered the same day, contained a materially broader formulation. It authorized suspicionless searches by any probation officer acting “in the lawful discharge of the officer’s supervision functions.” Tostado’s plea agreement included a clause binding her to the warrantless-search condition “regardless of whether th[o]se conditions are orally pronounced by the court at sentencing as long as they are included in the judgment.” Tostado timely appealed, arguing the written judgment imposed materially different conditions than those orally announced.

Analysis

The Court began its analysis by noting that under the Rogers–Singletary framework, the oral pronouncement at sentencing is the defendant’s actual sentence and prevails over any contrary or additional language in the written judgment. The Rogers Court held, “[a]ll non-mandatory conditions of supervised release must be announced at a defendant’s sentencing hearing.” When a “material discrepancy” exists between the oral and written versions, United States v. Bullis, 122 F.4th 107 (4th Cir. 2024), the established remedy is vacatur and resentencing, Singletary.

The Court distilled the inquiry to a single question: under what circumstances may a probation officer who lacks reasonable suspicion conduct a warrantless search? At sentencing, the District Court identified one permissible basis for such a search, i.e., “safety issues.” In contrast, the written judgment permitted suspicionless searches whenever a probation officer was engaged in “the lawful discharge of the officer’s supervision functions.” The Court determined that the written formulation was “substantially broader” than the oral pronouncement. Bullis. Because a probation officer’s statutory authority under 18 U.S.C. § 3603(3) encompasses “all suitable methods” for aiding supervised individuals and improving their conduct, the written condition authorized far more than what the court told Tostado in person, according to the Court.

The Government argued that the District Court’s use of the phrase “for example” signaled that safety issues were merely one illustration of permissible suspicionless searches. The Court explained that even accepting that reading, the oral pronouncement still never specified what other circumstances would authorize such searches. Regardless of how the sentencing transcript was read, the written judgment restricted Tostado’s liberty in ways never announced in her presence, the Court stated. Thus, the Court held that such an error, standing alone, “requires that we vacate [the] sentence and remand for the district court to conduct the sentencing anew.” Singletary. The Court noted that because “one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel,” a single Rogers–Singletary error sufficed to vacate the entire sentence. United States v. Mathis, 103 F.4th 193 (4th Cir. 2024).

The Government’s Counterarguments

The Government raised three additional arguments, and the Court rejected each. On timeliness, the Government contended that Tostado forfeited her claim by failing to object during the oral pronouncement. The Court explained that Rogers itself foreclosed this position because a claim that a written judgment contains conditions the District Court never orally announced arises “almost by definition, only after [the] sentencing hearing and after the judgment was entered and final.” No contemporaneous objection is required to preserve such a claim.

The Government next argued that the written judgment tracked the PSR’s recommended conditions, to which Tostado never objected. The Court stated that a PSR’s recommendations remain “nonbinding recommendations” unless and until the sentencing court affirmatively adopts them. Bullis; United States v. Cisson, 33 F.4th 185 (4th Cir. 2022). Because the District Court never stated it was adopting the PSR’s proposed conditions, and because the search condition announced at sentencing matched neither the PSR nor the written judgment, Tostado “had no reason to object to its contents,” according to the Court.

The Government’s harmless-error argument centered on the plea agreement provision binding Tostado to the warrantless-search condition regardless of whether the sentencing court orally pronounced it. The Court noted that the Fourth Circuit had never deemed a Rogers–Singletary error harmless and had consistently vacated and remanded for resentencing without conducting a separate harmless-error inquiry. Even assuming such errors could be harmless, this one was not, the Court stated. Because courts impose sentences rather than parties, and the warrantless-search condition from the plea agreement was never orally announced, it was not “included in the judgment” as Rogers–Singletary precedent defines that concept, the Court reasoned. The Court stated that “discretionary conditions appearing for the first time in a written judgment in fact have not been ‘imposed’ on the defendant.” Singletary. It declined to reach whether a defendant may ever waive through a plea agreement the right to be present at sentencing that undergirds the Rogers–Singletary doctrine.

Standing to Appeal
Rogers–Singletary Claims

In an issue of first impression, the Court addressed whether a defendant who asserts a Rogers–Singletary error has standing to appeal. Though it had resolved numerous such cases without raising standing concerns, the Court acknowledged it had never squarely decided this question. Doing so in the present case, the Court held that such standing exists. Though the Government disclaimed any standing objection at oral argument, the Court observed that Article III courts bear an independent obligation to confirm jurisdiction. See Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill, 587 U.S. 658 (2019).

Drawing an analogy to pre-enforcement challenges against statutes carrying heavy penalties under Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908), the Court reasoned that until a court actually invalidates a potentially improper supervised release condition, even a defendant who believes the condition was never validly imposed has a strong practical incentive to comply with it. That practical effect of requiring or forbidding action by the defendant makes standing straightforward to establish. The Court based this conclusion on Food & Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U.S. 367 (2024), where the Supreme Court explained that standing is “easy to establish” when a challenged measure “requir[es] or forbid[s] some action” by the party challenging it.

Conclusion

Accordingly, the Court vacated the judgment and remanded for resentencing consistent with its opinion. See: United States v. Tostado, 171 F.4th 664 (4th Cir. 2026).  

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