Court Vacates Supervised Release Revocation Based on Unconfronted Hearsay

US v. Wheeler: Wheeler was on supervised release when he had an altercation in a hotel lobby with Mobley, who accused Wheeler of assaulting and strangling her. After his probation officer sought a modification as a  result, the district court “ordered the probation officer to initiate supervised release revocation proceedings instead.” Mobley did not appear for the revocation hearing after failed attempts by the probation officer to contact her and successfully serve a subpoena on her. Over Wheeler’s objection, the district court proceeded with the revocation hearing, with the Government presenting several witnesses, including some who repeated Mobley’s allegations as related to them. Wheeler’s term of supervised release was revoked and he was sentenced to six months in prison and additional supervised release, but was released on bond because, the district court found, “this was a close case” and Wheeler “should have an opportunity for his cause to be heard” on appeal.

On appeal a divided Fourth Circuit reversed the revocation of his term of supervised release. Central to the appeal was whether the district court erred by considering Mobley’s hearsay statements after her failure to appear to testify. The court concluded that it had because it did not properly apply the balancing test required for determining whether such testimony is admissible. The district court is required to balance “the defendant’s interest in confrontation against the Government’s good cause,” which did not occur here. The court also noted that the burden is on the Government to show good cause to admit evidence, not on the defendant to show the evidence is inadmissible. The court also included that the Government did not provide a sufficient explanation for its failure to secure Mobley’s presence and that neither error was harmless.

Judge King’s dissent reads, in its entirety: “Because I am fully satisfied that the very able presiding judge did not abuse his broad discretion in making the challenged evidentiary ruling, I would affirm the judgment of the district court. As a result, I respectfully dissent.”

Congrats to the Defender office in WDNC on the win!