Opinion ID: 794179
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fifth Amendment — Due Process

Text: 14 Kelley also argues that the admission of the Pattersons' hearsay statements at his revocation hearing violated his more limited due process right of confrontation. Morrissey held that due process requires an informal notice-and-hearing procedure prior to parole revocation, and that this includes (among other things) the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses (unless the hearing officer specifically finds good cause for not allowing confrontation)[.] Morrissey, 408 U.S. at 489, 92 S.Ct. 2593. Kelley argues that the district court violated his due process rights under Morrissey by failing to find good cause to deny confrontation of Daniel and Terra Patterson. 15 The government responded to Kelley's objection below by simply asserting that all hearsay is admissible at revocation hearings and the court could give the Pattersons' hearsay statements whatever weight it wanted. The district court apparently agreed and did not make an explicit finding of good cause. This was an incorrect view of the law in this circuit; we have interpreted Morrissey and Gagnon to permit the admission of reliable hearsay at revocation hearings without a specific showing of good cause, Pratt, 52 F.3d at 675; Egerstaffer v. Israel, 726 F.2d 1231, 1234 (7th Cir.1984); Prellwitz v. Berg, 578 F.2d 190, 192 (7th Cir.1978), and the district court did not evaluate the reliability of the Pattersons' hearsay statements. Any error in this regard was harmless, however, because the hearsay in Officer Morency's testimony and police report bore substantial indicia of reliability so that its admission was not fundamentally unfair. 16 Officer Morency was dispatched to the scene on a report of a man with a gun, and his personal observations and investigation corroborated the Pattersons' version of events. The parties to the altercation were still at the scene, and the officer noted that Daniel Patterson had sustained a mouth injury, suffering a broken tooth. Kelley's car (later confirmed to be registered to him) was parked nearby, and in the trunk of that car, just as the Pattersons had indicated, was a black, .22-caliber rifle, a rifle case, and numerous rounds of.22-caliber ammunition. The physical evidence and the officer's personal observations and investigation corroborated the Pattersons' accusations that Kelley punched them in the face and confronted them with a rifle that he produced from the trunk of his car. 17 Where hearsay evidence sought to be admitted at a revocation hearing bears substantial guarantees of trust-worthiness, then the need to show good cause vanishes. Egerstaffer, 726 F.2d at 1234; see also Pratt, 52 F.3d at 675; Prellwitz, 578 F.2d at 192. This circuit essentially treats a finding of substantial trustworthiness as the equivalent of a good cause finding for the admission of hearsay in the revocation context. Kelley makes a one-sentence fallback argument in his reply brief suggesting that this circuit's interpretation of Morrissey 's good cause requirement is incorrect and that we should henceforward require an explicit finding of good cause before the admission of hearsay in a revocation hearing. Kelley's argument is both too late and too cursory to merit serious consideration in this case. 4 United States v. Adamson, 441 F.3d 513, 521 n. 2 (7th Cir.2006) (Arguments made for the first time in a reply brief are waived . . . and in any event the argument is not developed.) (internal citation omitted). In any event, Morrissey emphasized the flexible and informal nature of revocation procedures, 408 U.S. at 489-90, 92 S.Ct. 2593, and Gagnon clarified that the Court did not intend Morrissey to prohibit use where appropriate of the conventional substitutes for live testimony, including affidavits, depositions, and documentary evidence. Gagnon, 411 U.S. at 782 n. 5, 93 S.Ct. 1756. 18 Even in light of the flexible nature of revocation hearings, however, the district court ideally should have explained on the record why the hearsay was reliable and why that reliability was substantial enough to supply good cause for not producing the Pattersons as live witnesses. Still, we have not strictly required district courts to make explicit reliability and good cause findings. See Pratt, 52 F.3d at 675 (affirming revocation based on hearsay evidence because the district court could find that [the] hearsay testimony was reliable and the government could have shown good cause why the witnesses need not be present) (emphasis added). The record here is sufficiently clear for us to conclude that the Pattersons' hearsay was substantially trustworthy so as to establish good cause for not producing them as live witnesses. In light of the officer's independent corroboration, the admission of the Pattersons' hearsay statements did not undermine the fundamental fairness of Kelley's revocation hearing and did not violate his right to due process. See Pratt, 52 F.3d at 676-77. 19 AFFIRMED.