United States v. Simmons

Summary

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirms Ashley Simmons’s supervised-release revocation and conviction for failing to appear at his violation-of-supervised-release hearing. The court holds that Simmons knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to be present, that any error in proceeding in his absence was harmless, and that imposing consecutive sentences under 18 U.S.C. § 3146(b)(2) was not plain error because the statute’s application was unsettled. The court also rejects Simmons’s constitutional challenge to supervised-release revocation proceedings, with Judge Kearse concurring separately.

Holdings

1. Simmons knowingly and voluntarily waived his right to be present, and the district court did not commit reversible error by proceeding with the supervised-release-violation hearing in his absence. In any event, any potential error was harmless because Simmons showed no reasonable possibility of prejudice and the evidence of the violations was overwhelming.
2. The district court did not plainly err by concluding that § 3146(b)(2) required the failure-to-appear sentence to run consecutively to the supervised-release sentences because the statute's application to failure to appear at a supervised-release-violation hearing was unsettled law.
3. Supervised-release revocation proceedings and their attendant procedural mechanisms are constitutional and do not require grand-jury indictment, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, or a jury trial for the revocation violations.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the district court properly proceeded with Simmons's supervised-release-violation hearing in his absence.
2. Whether the district court plainly erred by imposing consecutive sentences under 18 U.S.C. § 3146(b)(2) for failure to appear at a supervised-release-violation hearing and the underlying supervised-release violations.
3. Whether supervised-release revocation proceedings are unconstitutional because they do not require grand-jury indictment, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, or a jury trial.

Disposition

affirmed