Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-14-03522/USCOURTS-ca3-14-03522-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
George Rocky Balboa
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

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No. 14-3522

________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

GEORGE ROCKY BALBOA, 

Appellant

________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Criminal Action No. 4-94-cr-00310-001)

District Judge: Honorable Matthew W. Brann

________________

Submitted under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

on March 3, 2015

Before: AMBRO, SCIRICA and ROTH, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: June 15, 2015)

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OPINION*

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ROTH, Circuit Judge

 

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent.

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The District Court sentenced George Rocky Balboa to a twenty-four month term 

of imprisonment after finding he violated various conditions of his supervised release. 

We will affirm the District Court’s judgment.

I. Background

On June 28, 1995, Balboa pled guilty to money laundering1and conspiracy to 

defraud financial institutions and commit money laundering.

2 He was sentenced to 150 

months’ imprisonment, followed by three years’ supervised release. On April 17, 2014, 

mere months after his release from prison, Balboa was arrested in Chicago for violating 

the conditions of his release.

At a revocation hearing on July 21, 2014, Balboa admitted to the following

violations of his supervised release conditions: unauthorized travel outside the judicial 

district of his supervised release, failure to report as directed to his probation officer, and 

lying to his probation officer. Balboa did not admit that he had violated conditions 

requiring him to notify his probation officer of an address change and prohibiting him

from committing additional crimes. 

The District Court reviewed the following evidence that Balboa committed 

additional crimes while on supervised release: (1) an unsigned police report certified by 

a Mansfield Township, New Jersey, police officer and an arrest warrant authorized by a 

Mansfield Township Municipal Court judge charging Balboa with theft by deception, bad 

checks, and harassment by communications concerning a $5,900 check deposited on 

 

1 See 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(1).

2 See 18 U.S.C. § 371.

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February 7, 2014; (2) a signed criminal complaint, attested to under oath by a Scranton, 

Pennsylvania, police officer, and an arrest warrant issued by a Pennsylvania magisterial 

district judge, charging Balboa with theft, unauthorized use of a vehicle, bad checks, and 

theft by deception resulting from conduct that took place on March 21 and 22, 2014; and 

(3) an arrest warrant signed by a Lake County, Illinois, Circuit Court judge on May 29, 

2014, charging Balboa with deceptive practices for passing bad checks.

The District Court considered corroborating evidence as well, including a 

Pennsylvania State Police crash report detailing a March 4, 2014, accident involving a 

rental car driven by Balboa, and an Ohio Department of Public Safety crash report 

detailing a March 23, 2014, accident involving a rental car driven by Balboa. In addition, 

the District Court considered Balboa’s probation officer’s testimony that she learned 

about his new, post-release criminal violations directly from local law enforcement 

agencies. The probation officer further testified that she was unable to make contact with 

Balboa by phone or at the address he identified as his residence from March 27 to April 

2, 2014, and that Balboa failed to report to her office for a mandatory appointment on 

April 3, 2014. Balboa did not object to the admission of any evidence against him.3

 

3 When asked if she had any objection to the admission of the documentary evidence 

relating to Balboa’s commission of additional, post-release crimes, his counsel 

responded: “No, Your Honor. But this will give me an opportunity just for the record to 

state that obviously I cannot confront and cross examine a piece of paper. That’s why I 

don’t believe the Government has proven its case by a preponderance of the evidence.” 

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The District Court found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Balboa had 

violated all five conditions charged in the superseding petition. Accordingly, the court 

revoked supervised release and sentenced Balboa to twenty-four months’ imprisonment.

4

II. Analysis5

We review the District Court’s decision for plain error because defense counsel

did not object to the introduction of hearsay evidence of Balboa’s criminal conduct.

6

 

“For reversible plain error to exist, there must be (1) an error; (2) that is plain; (3) that 

affects substantial rights; and (4) which seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public 

reputation of judicial proceedings.”7

The District Court did not commit error, plain or otherwise, in admitting hearsay 

evidence that Balboa committed additional crimes while on supervised release. In the

revocation context, courts may admit hearsay evidence subject to a balancing of the 

 

4 Twenty-four months’ imprisonment represents the statutory maximum sentence for any 

supervised release violation(s) stemming from an underlying Class C or D felony 

conviction. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3).

5 The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. §§ 3231 and 3583(e). We have 

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

6 Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(b); see United States v. Paladino, 769 F.3d 197, 200 (3d Cir. 2014); 

supra note 5. Defense counsel’s allusion to her inability to “cross examine a piece of 

paper” was insufficient to preserve a hearsay objection on appeal. See In re Ins. 

Brokerage Antitrust Litig., 579 F.3d 241, 262 (3d Cir. 2009). A party must 

“unequivocally put its position before the trial court at a point and in a manner that 

permits the court to consider its merits.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation 

omitted). Here, defense counsel merely echoed the District Court’s acknowledgment that 

despite the relaxed evidentiary standards applicable to revocation hearings, a defendant is 

owed certain due process protections. Balboa concedes he advanced no “particularized 

objection . . . to the admission of the hearsay.”

7 Paladino, 769 F.3d at 201 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

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defendant’s “interest in the constitutionally guaranteed right to confrontation against the 

government’s good cause for denying it.”

8

 

Here, the District Court acknowledged as much, noting at the revocation hearing

that “despite the[] relaxed standards” of evidence applicable to revocation proceedings, 

“[d]efendants are entitled to minimal due process requirements, including the right to 

confront and cross examine adverse witnesses.” The court then “assume[d] without 

deciding that [] district judges’ consideration of unsworn probation officer statements 

might potentially violate a right and constitute an obvious error,” but that here such an 

error “would be harmless as it did not affect any substantial rights.”

Balboa argues the District Court erred in not requiring the government to articulate

“good cause” for the court’s reliance on hearsay evidence. We rejected such an inflexible

standard when faced with a “releasee’s asserted right to cross-examine adverse 

witnesses.”

9 Moreover, the evidence at issue—including a signed criminal complaint and 

arrest warrant relating to additional crimes Balboa allegedly committed in Pennsylvania

and a signed arrest warrant charging him with additional crimes in Illinois—bear 

 

8 United States v. Lloyd, 566 F.3d 341, 344-45 (3d Cir. 2009) (quoting Fed. R. Crim. P. 

32.1(b)(2)(C) advisory committee note concerning 2002 amendments); see generally 

Morrisey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471 (1972).

9 Lloyd, 566 F.3d at 344-45 (emphasis added) (“[W]e reject a per se rule that a district 

court’s failure to explicitly address cause amounts to reversible error in all cases.”).

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sufficient indicia of reliability to overcome a hypothetical hearsay objection.10 Thus, the 

District Court did not commit reversible plain error.

Moreover, this evidence, whether hearsay or not, did not “seriously affect[] the 

fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.”11 Coupled with Balboa’s 

probation officer’s live testimony (most of which was non-hearsay), the various police 

reports, arrest warrants, criminal complaints, and crash reports introduced by the 

government paint a vivid, and consistent, picture of Balboa’s disregard for the conditions 

of his supervised release, including the prohibition against committing additional crimes.

III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the District Court’s judgment.

 

10 The District Court appears to have reached the same conclusion. In discussing the 

applicable legal standard, the Court contrasted “unsworn probation officer statements” 

with the trove of manifestly reliable evidence from multiple jurisdictions on which it 

premised its finding that Balboa engaged in criminal activity while on supervised release.

11 See United States v. Dragon, 471 F.3d 501, 505 (3d Cir. 2006) (quoting United States 

v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 736 (1993)). 

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