United States v. Sutton, No. 17-3195 (8th Cir. 2019)
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Defendant appealed the revocation of his supervised release based on the allegation that he committed assault in June 2016. The Eighth Circuit, on de novo review, reversed and held that the admission of three witness interrogations was erroneous where none of the witnesses appeared at the hearing to provide live testimony.
Applying the test set out in U.S. v. Bell, 785 F.2d 640 (8th Cir. 1086), the court held that the government failed to meet its burden to demonstrate that good cause justified limiting defendant's confrontational rights. In this case, the government failed to prove that confrontation would be either impractical or undesirable, and failed to establish the reliability of the evidence the government was offering in place of live testimony.
Court Description: Kelly, Author, with Gruender and Grasz, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law. In a proceeding to revoke defendant's supervised release, defendant asserted that the admission of videotaped unsworn statements from the witnesses regarding the allegations of an assault violated his due process rights; the correctness of the admission of the hearsay evidence would be reviewed de novo rather than other the abuse of discretion standard; applying the test set out in U.S. v. Bell, 785 F.2d 640 (8th Cir. 1086), the government failed to establish why confrontation was undesirable or impractical and failed to establish the reliability of the evidence the government was offering in place of live testimony; reversed and remanded for further proceedings as the district court deems necessary.
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