Court Opinion

ID: 9899897
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-17 21:00:30.255164+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:55.248821
License: Public Domain

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                                            UNPUBLISHED

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

                                              No. 23-4008

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                            Plaintiff - Appellee,

                     v.

        RONALD EDDY, a/k/a Ronald Eddie,

                            Defendant - Appellant.

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore.
        Julie R. Rubin, District Judge. (1:02-cr-00201-JRR-6)

        Submitted: October 19, 2023                                 Decided: November 16, 2023

        Before WILKINSON and GREGORY, Circuit Judges, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit
        Judge.

        Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

        ON BRIEF: Sapna Mirchandani, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER,
        Greenbelt, Maryland; Christopher B. Leach, Carmen N. Longoria-Green, MAYER
        BROWN LLP, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Erek L. Barron, United States Attorney,
        Kim Y. Hagan, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES
        ATTORNEY, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.

        Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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        PER CURIAM:

               Ronald Eddy appeals the 60-month sentence imposed after the district court revoked

        his supervised release. On appeal, Eddy argues that the district court plainly erred in

        admitting ex parte and hearsay statements related to whether he used a real firearm during

        a robbery. Eddy also contends that the district court clearly erred in finding that he used a

        real firearm. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.

               As Eddy appropriately concedes, because he did not object to the admission of the

        challenged evidence in the district court, we review for plain error. United States v. Combs,

        36 F.4th 502, 505 (4th Cir. 2022). To succeed on plain-error review, Eddy must “establish

        that (1) an error occurred; (2) the error was plain; and (3) the error affected his substantial

        rights.” Id. (cleaned up). If Eddy makes this showing, we have discretion to correct the

        error and should do so “if the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity or public

        reputation of judicial proceedings.” Rosales-Mireles v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1897,

        1905 (2018) (internal quotation marks omitted).

               A defendant at a revocation hearing has the right “to confront and cross-examine

        adverse witnesses (unless the hearing officer specifically finds good cause for not allowing

        confrontation).” Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 489 (1972). The parameters of this

        right are set forth in Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1(b)(2)(C), which provides that a defendant is

        entitled to “question any adverse witness unless the court determines that the interest of

        justice does not require the witness to appear.” “[T]he district court must balance the

        releasee’s interest in confronting an adverse witness against any proffered good cause for

        denying such confrontation.” United States v. Doswell, 670 F.3d 526, 530 (4th Cir. 2012)

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        (emphasis added). “[T]he reliability of the [hearsay] evidence is a critical factor in the

        balancing test under Rule 32.1,” but not the beginning and end of the analysis. United

        States v. Ferguson, 752 F.3d 613, 617 (4th Cir. 2014). “[U]nless the [G]overnment makes

        a showing of good cause for why the relevant witness is unavailable, hearsay evidence is

        inadmissible at revocation hearings.” Id. And “Rule 32.1(b)(2)(B) states that a person

        subject to a revocation hearing is entitled to disclosure of the evidence against him.”

        Combs, 36 F.4th at 505.

               Assuming that the district court erred and that its error was plain, we conclude that

        Eddy cannot establish that the error affected his substantial rights. “To establish the third

        prong of plain error, [the defendant] must show a reasonable probability that, but for the

        error, the outcome of the proceeding would have been different.” Id. at 507 (internal

        quotation marks omitted). In this context, Eddy must establish “a reasonable probability

        that the district court would have imposed a lower sentence.” Id. at 508. The same standard

        applies for both Rules 32.1(b)(2)(B) and (C) because Eddy “need not rebut evidence he has

        never seen . . . in order to establish that he was prejudiced by the district court’s reliance

        on that evidence.” Id. at 508 n.2 (internal quotation marks omitted).

               In Combs, we considered a similar claim of plain error when the district court

        considered ex parte statements from the defendant’s wife, N.D. See id. at 504-05. In

        concluding that the defendant could not satisfy the third prong of plain-error review, we

        emphasized the district court “expressly consider[ed] several factors . . . in announcing the

        sentence,” such as the defendant’s “history of repeated violations of his conditions of

        supervised release, his continual drug use, the court’s duty to protect public safety, and the

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        sentencing factors under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).” Id. at 508. While “the court mentioned

        that Combs had terrorized his ex-wife, it also referred to Combs’ prior conviction for

        robbery with a dangerous weapon.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). And based on

        the history of the case, “the court was already aware that Combs had terrorized N.D.” Id.

        (internal quotation marks omitted). The court had previously disclosed “[a] letter N.D. . . .

        sent to the court [that] described her fear of Combs in detail.” Id. Finally, “the conviction

        that formed the basis of the revocation proceedings . . . arose from a threatening message

        Combs sent to N.D., prompting her to call law enforcement.” Id.

               Here, while the district court sought the ex parte communications on its own

        initiative, Eddy in allocution first introduced a matter that surprised all the parties—his

        assertion that the gun used in the robbery was not real. In describing the nature and

        circumstances of the offense, the district court emphasized that the victims “on their

        impression” were held at gunpoint. (J.A. 65). * And in describing the need to protect the

        public, the district court considered the fact that counsel had not raised the issue in her

        presentation. Although the court expressed skepticism to Eddy’s claim, it also emphasized

        that it simply had no way of ascertaining the truth. And the district court reiterated it was

        not going to penalize Eddy for raising the claim in mitigation, underscoring that “[a]ll [it]

        knew is that there was a conviction for robbery.” (J.A. 68). The district court explained

        that robbery was a crime of violence and that its largest concern was that, when things got

        hard, Eddy chose to commit a crime rather than seek help through the resources available

               *
                   “J.A.” refers to the Joint Appendix filed by the parties at ECF No. 16.

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        to him on supervision. Thus, the district court concluded that the breach of trust was

        “extraordinary.” (J.A. 70). Accordingly, looking at the totality of the district court’s

        remarks, we conclude that Eddy’s sentence would not have been different if the court had

        not considered the ex parte statements and hearsay.

               We also conclude that the district court did not make any clearly erroneous factual

        findings. “A district court has broad discretion when imposing a sentence upon revocation

        of supervised release.” United States v. Patterson, 957 F.3d 426, 436 (4th Cir. 2020). We

        “will affirm a revocation sentence if it is within the statutory maximum and is not plainly

        unreasonable.”    Id.    Before deciding “whether a revocation sentence is plainly

        unreasonable, [we] must first determine whether the sentence is procedurally or

        substantively unreasonable,” id., evaluating “the same procedural and substantive

        considerations that guide our review of original sentences” but taking “a more deferential

        appellate posture than we do when reviewing original sentences,” United States v. Padgett,

        788 F.3d 370, 373 (4th Cir. 2015) (cleaned up).          If a revocation sentence is both

        procedurally and substantively reasonable, we will not proceed to consider “whether the

        sentence is plainly unreasonable—that is, whether the unreasonableness is clear or

        obvious.” Patterson, 957 F.3d at 437 (internal quotation marks omitted).

               A district court commits procedural error when it “imposes a sentence based on

        clearly erroneous facts.” United States v. Sueiro, 59 F.4th 132, 141 (4th Cir. 2023) (cleaned

        up). A fact is clearly erroneous “when, after reviewing all the evidence, we are left with

        the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” United States v.

        Steffen, 741 F.3d 411, 415 (4th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted).

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               Eddy asks us to assume that because the district court did not accept his claim that

        the gun was fake it necessarily rejected it. In fact, the district court chose to give this claim

        no weight. This finding is not clearly erroneous. Considering all of the appropriate

        evidence in the record, Eddy’s claim that the gun was fake was dubious. The district court

        knew that Eddy committed a robbery and had possessed a firearm that he admitted was

        real. It would have been reasonable to infer based on those facts that Eddy used the gun

        during the robbery. That the district court chose to instead make a neutral finding—that it

        did not know if Eddy used a real firearm but also that it did not know that Eddy used a fake

        firearm—is thus not clearly erroneous.

               Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. We dispense with oral

        argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials

        before this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

                                                                                           AFFIRMED

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