Case Explained: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. JACK BENSON FLANDERS

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Filed: 2026-08-04 The fourth-circuit affirmed Jack Benson Flanders’s conviction for engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor while living in a foreign country, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(c), (e), and his sentence of 198 months’ imprisonment followed by five years’ supervised release. The court rejected Flanders’s claim that the prosecutor’s closing argument comment urging the jury to “do the right thing” violated his due process rights, applying a plain error standard because he failed to object at trial. Under this standard, the court found no clear or obvious error because the improper remark was isolated, unlikely to mislead the jury given the strength of the evidence, and mitigated by curative instructions. The court also rejected Flanders’s challenge to the Sentencing Guidelines enhancement for unduly influencing a minor under U.S.S.G. § 2G1.3(b)(2)(B), applying a harmless error analysis. The court held that any potential miscalculation was harmless because the district court explicitly stated it would have imposed the same downward variance sentence based on the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, and the sentence was substantively reasonable. The judgment of the district court is affirmed. Do It For The Case Law is a news reporting service. Nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.