[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 22-13918

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

RICHARD DOUGLAS TRAVIS, 

Defendant- Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 3:12-cr-00055-LC-1

____________________

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2 Opinion of the Court 22-13918

Before JORDAN, BRANCH, and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Richard Travis appeals the District Court for the Northern 

District of Florida’s order revoking his supervised release and imposing a 21-month sentence, arguing that the Court failed to conduct the proper balancing test under United States v. Frazier, 26 F.3d 

110 (11th Cir. 1994), before admitting hearsay evidence during his 

revocation hearing. While the District Court did err in failing to 

perform a Frazier test, Travis has not shown that this error was 

harmful. Therefore, we affirm.

I.

A federal grand jury in the Northern District of Florida indicted Richard Travis on one count of possessing a firearm as a 

felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). Travis 

initially pleaded not guilty, but later pleaded guilty to the charge. 

The District Court sentenced him to 96 months’ imprisonment followed by three years’ supervised release. Travis appealed, and this 

Court affirmed his sentence. See United States v. Travis, 747 F.3d 

1312 (11th Cir. 2014) (per curiam). Travis’s supervised release term 

began on August 20, 2021. 

In May 2022, United States Probation Officer Elizabeth Lane 

petitioned for a warrant for Travis, alleging that he had violated six 

conditions of his supervised release: (1) changing residence without 

informing the Probation Officer; (2) being unemployed without excuse; (3) failing to attend mental health counseling; (4) committing 

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22-13918 Opinion of the Court 3

criminal mischief and burglary; (5) committing criminal mischief, 

burglary, and false imprisonment; and (6) committing sexual battery on an underage victim. 

At the revocation hearing, Travis, through counsel, admitted the first four violations of his supervised release; he contested 

violations five and six because those charges were dismissed by the 

state court. The Government introduced video evidence of police 

interviewing the alleged minor victim from violation six, as well as 

social media messages between Travis and the alleged victim, but 

the Government did not present the victim as a witness. Travis 

objected to the introduction of the video and the social media conversation on confrontation grounds because he did not have the 

opportunity to cross-examine the victim. 

Travis argued that United States v. Frazier, 26 F.3d 110 (11th 

Cir. 1994), required the District Court to conduct a balancing test 

to decide if the hearsay evidence should be admitted. The Government argued that the hearsay evidence was reliable because other 

evidence in the record can corroborate the statement. The Government also stated that they tried to get the victim to testify, but 

suspected that she did not show up because there was a warrant for 

her arrest. The District Court overruled Travis’s objection without 

commenting on Frazier, conducting a balancing test, or giving any 

kind of reasoning.

The District Court determined that, in addition to the four 

violations Travis admitted to, he committed violations five and six. 

Violation six was a Grade B violation, and when combined with 

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Travis’s criminal history category of VI, the recommended guideline range was 21 to 24 months. The District Court said it had considered the 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, the applicable guideline recommendations, and all the evidence, statements, and information 

in the violation report, and that it was sentencing Travis to 21 

months’ imprisonment. Neither Travis nor the Government objected. 

Travis timely appealed, arguing that the District Court violated his due process rights when it admitted hearsay evidence 

without conducting the balancing test required by Frazier. Without that hearsay evidence, according to Travis, his violation would 

only have been a Grade C violation, with a lower guideline sentence range and a resulting lower sentence. 

II.

We review a district court’s revocation of supervised release 

for abuse of discretion. Id. A district court may revoke a term of 

supervised release if it finds by a preponderance of the evidence 

that the defendant violated a condition of supervised release. 18 

U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3).

The Federal Rules of Evidence and the Sixth Amendment do 

not apply in revocation hearings. Frazier, 26 F.3d at 114; see also 

United States v. Reese, 775 F.3d 1327, 1329 (11th Cir. 2015). However, hearsay is not automatically admissible, because minimal due 

process requirements still apply. Frazier, 26 F.3d at 114. This includes the right to confront and cross-examine adverse witnesses, 

unless the factfinder finds good cause for not requiring it. Id. A

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district court must balance the defendant’s right to confrontation 

against the government’s grounds for denying it and must ensure 

the hearsay statement is reliable. Id. In Frazier, we held that the 

district court erred because it “made no finding that the hearsay 

was reliable, nor did it weigh Frazier’s right of confrontation 

against the Government’s reasons for not producing the witness.”

Id.

If hearsay evidence is admitted in violation of due process, 

though, the defendant must show that the error was harmful. See 

id. This requires showing that the challenged evidence is materially false or unreliable and that it actually served as the basis for the 

sentence. United States v. Taylor, 931 F.2d 842, 847 (11th Cir. 1991).

Here, the District Court erred by admitting the hearsay evidence without conducting an explicit Frazier balancing test. See Frazier, 26 F.3d at 114. However, Travis has not shown harmful error. 

He made no such showing before the District Court and has not 

demonstrated on appeal that the challenged evidence is materially 

false or unreliable. See Taylor, 931 F.2d at 847. 

The Government presented significant evidence that Travis 

violated the terms of his supervised release. It presented Facebook 

logs of Travis saying, “I’m ready to give you this dick again,” implying that he had previously had sex with the alleged victim. The 

Government corroborated this with testimony that the account belonged to Travis, including his probation officer verifying that the 

Facebook logs showed a conversation with Travis’s ex-girlfriend 

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and that she recognized the account’s profile picture as being 

Travis. Therefore, any error was harmless.

AFFIRMED.

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