Court Opinion

ID: 994825
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2013-07-04 00:28:38.705585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:45.781019
License: Public Domain

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.                                                                      No. 97-4754

SYTANYA DARREN FELLS,
Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh.
W. Earl Britt, Senior District Judge.
(CA-93-10-BR)

Submitted: April 14, 1998

Decided: April 29, 1998

Before LUTTIG, WILLIAMS, and MOTZ, Circuit Judges.

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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

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COUNSEL

William Arthur Webb, Federal Public Defender, G. Alan DuBois,
Assistant Federal Public Defender, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
Appellant. Janice McKenzie Cole, United States Attorney, Anne M.
Hayes, Assistant United States Attorney, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
Appellee.

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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See
Local Rule 36(c).

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OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Sytanya Fells ("Fells") appeals the district court's revocation of his
supervised release. Because the district court's determination that
Fells violated the terms of his supervised release is supported by evi-
dence in the record, we affirm.

I.

In 1993, Fells pled guilty to one count of distribution of cocaine in
violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) (1994). The district court sentenced
Fells to twenty-one (21) months in prison to be followed by sixty (60)
months of supervised release. Fells was released from prison in June
1994, and began his supervised release in the Eastern District of New
York.

Among the terms of Fells's supervised release were two significant
to this appeal: first, that Fells was prohibited from participating in
criminal conduct; and second, that Fells was required to notify his
probation officer within seventy-two hours of being arrested or ques-
tioned by a law enforcement officer. On May 6, 1997, Fells was
arrested and charged with aggravated battery and harassment arising
out of a domestic dispute in New York. On May 17, 1997, while on
travel status, Fells was arrested in Raleigh, North Carolina, for misde-
meanor breaking and entering and communicating threats. A jury in
the Wake County, North Carolina District Court found Fells guilty of
the charges arising out of the latter incident, and sentenced him to
forty-five days in jail. Fells has since appealed this conviction.1
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1 In North Carolina, such an appeal voids the underlying conviction and
effects a trial de novo in the Superior Court. See State v. Brooks, 215
S.E.2d 111 (N.C. 1975). The United States concedes that, as a result of
Fells's appeal of this conviction, the district court's reliance on the con-
viction to prove criminal conduct was error. Appellee's Br. at 9. There-
fore, this incident of criminal conduct is not at issue in the present
appeal.

                    2
As a result of these incidents, the United States moved to revoke
Fells's supervised release, and the district court considered and ruled
upon that motion on September 8, 1997. At that hearing the district
court found that Fells reported the May 6, 1997 arrest to his probation
officer in New York within seventy-two hours of its occurrence, but
that he had failed to report the May 17, 1997, arrest. In addition, the
district court found that Fells had, on May 17, 1997, engaged in crim-
inal conduct in violation of the terms of his supervised release.

Based on its finding of these violations, the district court revoked
Fells's supervised release, and this appeal followed.

II.

The only contested issue in this appeal is Fells's allegation that the
district court's decision to revoke his supervised release was made
without the benefit of the procedures guaranteed by the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitu-
tion. This right to procedural due process was extended to the revoca-
tion of parole in Morissey v. Brewer,2 and to revocation of probation
in Gagnon v. Scarpelli.3 In United States v. Copley,4 we applied the
due process requirement outlined in Scarpelli to a supervised release
similar to the one at issue in the instant case.

As we explained in Copley, an important component of that
requirement, a "written statement" of a judge's decision to revoke the
supervised release, is satisfied by "a transcribed oral finding [of revo-
cation] . . . when the transcript and record compiled before the trial
judge enable the reviewing court to determine the basis of the trial
court's decision."5 Fells concedes that such an "oral finding" was
made in this case, but argues that due process requires "more that [sic]
a simple conclusory declaration that revocation is warranted."6 We
disagree.
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2 408 U.S. 471 (1972).
3 411 U.S. 778 (1973).
4 978 F.2d 829 (4th Cir. 1992).
5 United States v. Copley, 978 F.2d 829, 831 (4th Cir. 1992) (citations
omitted).
6 Appellant's Br. at 13.

                     3
In this appeal, the United States has abandoned all but one of the
grounds for revocation: Fells's failure to make a timely report of the
May 17, 1997, arrest to his probation officer. The record clearly con-
tains the district court's "oral finding" of this particular violation of
the terms of Fells's supervised release,7 and that finding is preceded
by evidence from which "the reviewing court [could] determine the
basis of the trial court's decision."8 Therefore, we find that Fells's due
process argument is without merit.

III.

Because we find that there is sufficient evidence in the record to
support the district court's finding that Fells violated the terms of his
supervised release, we believe that the district court's revocation did
not deny Fells the procedural guarantees of the Due Process Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment. We thus affirm the district court's
order. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the court
and argument would not aid in the decisional process.

AFFIRMED
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7 See J.A. at 27.
8 Copley, 978 F.2d at 831. See also J.A. at 12.

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