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U.S. v. Campos

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Feb 22, 2010
No. 09-10120 (9th Cir. Feb. 22, 2010)

Opinion

No. 09-10120.

Argued and Submitted February 10, 2010 Honolulu, Hawaii.

February 22, 2010.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii Helen Gillmor, Senior District Judge, Presiding D.C. No. 1:05-CR-00136-HG.

Before: FARRIS, D.W. NELSON and BEA, Circuit Judges.


MEMORANDUM

This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.


Paul Lanakila Campos ("Campos") appeals a judgment sentencing him to two years' imprisonment for violation of the terms of his supervised release based on the district court's finding that he committed bank robbery and fourth-degree theft. Campos contends this sentence was improperly based on the admission of hearsay evidence in violation of his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to confront witnesses against him at his supervised release revocation hearing.

We assume the parties are familiar with the facts of the case. We will not review them here except as necessary to explicate our decision.

We have jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. § 3742 and 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo whether the district court violated Campos's constitutional rights to confrontation and due process. United States v. Perez, 526 F.3d 543, 547 (9th Cir. 2008). Violations of such constitutional guarantees are subject to harmless error review. Id.

Campos had no Sixth Amendment right to confrontation at his revocation hearing. See United States v. Hall, 419 F.3d 980, 985 (9th Cir. 2005) (rejecting the proposition that Crawford extends the Sixth Amendment right to confrontation to revocation hearings, because such hearings are not "criminal prosecutions" within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment). But Campos still had a Fifth Amendment "due process right to confront witnesses against him during his supervised release proceedings, . . . unless the government shows good cause for not producing the witnesses." Id. at 986 (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, as to the district court's finding that Campos committed the bank robbery, Campos's interest in confrontation does not outweigh the government's good cause for denying it. See id. at 986-88. Surveillance photographs from the bank were reliable to the extent they depicted someone at the bank around the time of the robbery, regardless whether they depicted the bank robbery; the district court found those photographs depicted Campos. The police records of the bank robbery contained two reliable entries that, on the day ninety-two twenty-dollar bills were stolen from the bank, Campos was arrested with seventy-eight twenty-dollar bills after the bank robbery. Campos does not specifically contest any of these facts. Thus, there was reliable, uncontroverted evidence to find Campos had committed the bank robbery. See United States v. Comito, 177 F.3d 1166, 1172 (9th Cir. 1999) (noting that, "[i]n some instances, mere inconvenience or expense may be enough" for the government to show good cause).

Given the reliable, uncontroverted evidence that Campos was at the bank around the time of the robbery, and that he was later arrested with incriminating evidence, "there was [sufficient] evidence from which the trial court could find it was more probable than not" Campos had committed the bank robbery. Cf. Perez, 526 F.3d at 548 (emphasis added). The bank robbery finding alone is sufficient to affirm Campos's sentence on revocation of his supervised release. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 287, 3559(a), 3583(e)(3); see also U.S.S.G. § 7B1.4(a); id. § 7B1.1(b). Thus, any due process violation as to the fourth-degree theft finding would be harmless error. Perez, 526 F.3d at 547.

AFFIRMED.


Summaries of

U.S. v. Campos

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Feb 22, 2010
No. 09-10120 (9th Cir. Feb. 22, 2010)
Case details for

U.S. v. Campos

Case Details

Full title:UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. PAUL LANAKILA CAMPOS…

Court:United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit

Date published: Feb 22, 2010

Citations

No. 09-10120 (9th Cir. Feb. 22, 2010)