United States v. Reggie Winston

MEMORANDUM

Defendant Reggie Anthony Winston appeals from the district court’s decision revoking his probation and sentencing him to a term of two months in custody and thirty-four months of supervised release. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and reverse.

Winston contends that the district court’s admission of hearsay statements at the revocation hearing violated his due process rights because his interest in confrontation outweighed the government’s claim of good cause for denying confrontation. We agree. The hearsay statements provided the primary basis for the district court’s finding that Winston had violated his probation by threatening a worker at the residential re-entry center (“RRC”). See United States v. Comito, 177 F.3d 1166 , 1172 & n. 9 (9th Cir.1999) (declining to give significant weight to corroborative evidence when the Court’s “review of the record shows that, in fact, the additional evidence [wa]s not particularly persuasive”). Winston lacked any other mean ingful opportunity to refute the evidence. On the other side of the balance, the government offered no justification for its failure to present the declarant’s testimony and the hearsay…