Opinion ID: 2999183
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Fifth Amendment—Due Process

Text: 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 3 The only contrary authority cited by Kelley was a district court opinion that has since been reversed by the D.C. Circuit in Ash v. Reilly, 431 F.3d 826, 829-30 (D.C. Cir. 2005). No. 05-1884 7 held that due process requires an informal notice-andhearing 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. 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. 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. 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 evi- 8 No. 05-1884 dence 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. Where hearsay evidence sought to be admitted at a revocation hearing “bears substantial guarantees of trustworthiness, 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 4 We are aware that some circuits interpret Morrissey to require an explicit finding of good cause before admission of hearsay at a revocation hearing, and others have adopted a balancing test that requires the court to weigh the confrontation interest of the parolee/probationer against the interests of the government. E.g., United States v. Rondeau, 430 F.3d 44, 47-48 (1st Cir. 2005) (hearsay was admissible at revocation hearing only because court determined the hearsay was reliable, and that the government had a good reason not to produce declarants); Barnes v. Johnson, 184 F.3d 451, 454 (5th Cir. 1999) (“[T]o fall within the good-cause exception to the right of confrontation at a parole revocation hearing[,] the hearing officer must make an explicit, specific finding of good cause and state the reasons for that finding. . . . The hearing officer must weigh the parolee’s interest in confronting the witness with the government’s interest in denying the parolee that right.”); United States v. Martin, 382 F.3d 840, 844 (continued...) No. 05-1884 9 (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, 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. 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 4 (...continued) (8th Cir. 2004) (“[T]o comport with Morrissey v. Brewer, the district court must balance the probationer’s right to confront a witness against the grounds asserted by the government for not requiring confrontation.”) (quotation marks and citation omitted); United States v. Hall, 419 F.3d 980, 986 (9th Cir. 2005) (“To determine whether the admission of hearsay evidence violates the releasee’s right to confrontation in a particular case, the court must weigh the releasee’s interest in his constitutionally guaranteed right to confrontation against the Government’s good cause for denying it.”) (quotation and citation omitted); United States v. Frazier, 26 F.3d 110, 114 (11th Cir. 1994) (in deciding whether to admit hearsay testimony at a revocation hearing, “the court must balance the defendant’s right to confront adverse witnesses against the grounds asserted by the government for denying confrontation”). Other circuits follow our approach and do not require an explicit good cause finding or a balancing test. See United States v. McCallum, 677 F.2d 1024, 1025-26 (4th Cir. 1982); Kell v. United States Parole Comm’n, 26 F.3d 1016, 1019-20 (10th Cir. 1994). 10 No. 05-1884 (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. AFFIRMED. A true Copy: Teste: ________________________________ Clerk of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit USCA-02-C-0072—5-2-06