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Parties Involved:
Marvin Smith
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 14-14458

Non-Argument Calendar

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 4:99-cr-10030-CMA-1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

 versus

MARVIN SMITH, 

 Defendant-Appellant.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

________________________

(August 31, 2015)

Before JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

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Marvin Smith appeals from the district court’s order revoking his supervised 

release. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e). In 2000, Smith was convicted, pursuant to a 

guilty plea, of distribution of cocaine base, for which he was sentenced to serve 

151 months in prison followed by a three-year term of supervised release. He 

began serving the term of supervised release in January 2013. In July 2014, a 

probation officer petitioned to revoke Smith’s supervised release, alleging that he 

violated the conditions of his release by failing to refrain from transgressions of the 

law. At the revocation hearing, the government contended that Smith committed 

the following three violations: (1) failing to yield to an emergency vehicle, (2) 

operating a motor vehicle without a valid driver’s license, and (3) committing the 

offense of trespassing. Based on the testimony of the police officers involved in 

these incidents, the district court found that the government proved all three 

violations. The court sentenced Smith to 14 months’ imprisonment, at the top of 

his advisory guideline range of 8 to 14 months, with no supervised release to 

follow.1

 Smith now appeals. 

On appeal, Smith contends that the district court erred by admitting hearsay 

statements from a testifying officer regarding the trespassing violation without first 

 1

 Smith’s violations were all Grade C, and his criminal history category was VI. See 

United States Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 7B1.4(a). Smith’s 14-month term appears to 

“incorporate some period of time in a halfway house.” (Doc. 217 at 58).

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conducting the balancing test required by this Court’s precedent.

2

 The government 

responds that no hearsay was admitted but that even if it had been, any error was 

harmless.

We review a district court’s revocation of supervised release under an abuseof-discretion standard. United States v. Frazier, 26 F.3d 110, 112 (11th Cir. 1994). 

A district court may revoke a defendant’s supervised release and impose a term of 

imprisonment if the court finds, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the 

defendant violated a condition of his supervised release. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3); 

see United States Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 7B1.3. 

The Federal Rules of Evidence do not apply in supervised-release revocation 

proceedings, so hearsay statements may be admissible, provided certain minimal 

due-process requirements are met. Frazier, 26 F.3d at 114. “Thus, in deciding 

whether or not to admit hearsay testimony, the court must balance the defendant’s 

right to confront adverse witnesses against the grounds asserted by the government 

for denying confrontation.” Id.; see also Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1(b)(2)(C) (providing 

that a defendant in revocation proceedings is entitled to “an opportunity to . . . 

question any adverse witness unless the court determines that the interest of justice 

does not require the witness to appear”). The hearsay statements in question must 

 2 By failing to challenge in his brief the district court’s determination on the first two 

violations, Smith is deemed to have abandoned any challenge on those grounds. See Access Now, 

Inc. v. Sw. Airlines Co., 385 F.3d 1324, 1330 (11th Cir. 2004). 

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also be reliable. Frazier, 26 F.3d at 114. The court’s failure to engage in this 

balancing test constitutes error and a violation of the defendant’s due-process 

rights. See id. Nonetheless, the court’s admission of hearsay in revocation 

proceedings is subject to harmless-error review. See id. 

A fundamental question, then, is whether the district court actually admitted 

hearsay. “Hearsay” is defined as a declarant’s out-of-court statement offered for 

the “truth of the matter asserted.” Fed. R. Evid. 801(c). Smith argues that the 

testimony of Officer Ana Nelson, who testified regarding the trespassing violation, 

contained hearsay from two out-of-court declarants. 

At the revocation hearing, with regard to the trespassing violation, Officer 

Nelson testified that early in the morning on July 11, 2014, she responded to a call 

about a verbal dispute between two women at apartment 14-E of the Porter Place 

apartment complex in Key West, Florida. When she arrived on the scene, she first 

observed a man rounding the corner of a separate building within the complex. 

She later came to believe that the individual was Smith. She went to apartment 14-

E, where she encountered a damaged apartment door and Caridad De Godoy and 

Shannon Crystal, who were both angry and upset. De Godoy and Crystal lived in 

the apartment. De Godoy pointed in the direction of the man. Officer Nelson

collected a written statement from one woman and conducted a recorded 

conversation with the other woman. 

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After speaking with De Godoy and Crystal, Officer Nelson testified, she 

traveled to a nearby convenience store, where she met two other officers who had 

been talking to Smith because he contacted the police department regarding the 

well-being of two children at Porter Place. Officer Nelson ran a check on Smith 

and determined that he previously had been trespass-warned from all Housing 

Authority properties, including Porter Place. After Officer Nelson advised Smith 

of his Miranda3 rights, Smith explained that he went to Porter Place at Crystal’s 

request to pick up the two children from another apartment in the complex. Smith 

attempted to bring the children to yet another apartment in the complex but was 

unable to, so he began trying to take them to the children’s grandparents. At some 

point, Smith observed Crystal outside of her apartment and instructed the children 

to go to her. Smith then went to the convenience store to call the police. Smith 

told Officer Nelson that he understood that he was not allowed on Housing 

Authority property, but explained that he would willingly go to jail to ensure the 

safety of the children. 

Notably, at no point in his appellate brief does Smith clearly identify what 

alleged “hearsay statements” were admitted at the revocation hearing. He suggests 

that De Godoy and Crystal identified Smith as the person Officer Nelson saw when 

she first arrived at Porter Place. That may in fact have occurred, but Officer 

 3 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S. Ct. 1602 (1966). 

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Nelson did not so testify at the hearing. Officer Nelson merely stated that she 

obtained statements from the two women, but, as Smith acknowledges, “the 

statements were not introduced into evidence.”4

 (Appellant’s Br. at 6). Rather, 

Officer Nelson limited her testimony to her perception of their demeanor, her 

observations at the scene, and her summary of Smith’s own statements. And, 

according to Smith’s own statements, which were obtained after he independently 

made contact with police, he was at several locations within the Porter Place 

complex while attempting to take care of the two children at Crystal’s request. 

Because he is a party-opponent, Smith’s statements to Officer Nelson are, by 

definition, not hearsay. See Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(2). 

Accordingly, the district court did not err by failing to conduct a balancing 

test before admitting Officer Nelson’s testimony. See Frazier, 26 F.3d at 113-14. 

We therefore affirm the court’s order revoking Smith’s supervised release.

 4 Our review of the record indicates that, initially, a possibility arose that hearsay might 

be relied upon, but that never materialized. Smith initially was charged by the State with 

burglary and criminal mischief, allegedly based on the witness statements obtained by Officer 

Nelson from De Godoy and Crystal. At some point, according to Smith, they “recanted” these 

statements, leading the State to downgrade the charges to trespass. This happened between the 

filing of the revocation petition in July 2014 and the hearing in November 2014. At the 

beginning of the revocation hearing, it appears that the government had intended to call De

Godoy and Crystal as witnesses but was unable to secure their attendance. Failing that, the 

government suggested that Officer Nelson was going to testify “not only as to the statements 

made by the victims of the alleged burglary and trespass, but also testimony regarding her own 

observations and the statements made by Mr. Smith, himself.” (Doc. 217 at 4-5). Smith 

objected that these statements would be hearsay but the court did not resolve the objection or

take any action at the time. Ultimately, however, Officer Nelson limited her testimony to “her 

own observations and the statements made by Mr. Smith, himself,” so no hearsay was admitted 

and, therefore, no error occurred. 

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AFFIRMED.

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