United States v. Davis

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Decided: March 12, 2026
• Docket: 25-1968
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

25-1968 United States v. Davis

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 12th day of March, two thousand twenty-six.

PRESENT: REENA RAGGI, MYRNA PÉREZ, SARAH A. L. MERRIAM Circuit Judges. ________________________________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v. No. 25-1968

REINALDO DAVIS,

Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________

1 FOR APPELLEE: VINCENT CHIAPPINI (Amy Busa, on the brief), Assistant United States Attorneys, for Joseph Nocella, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn, NY.

FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT: GILA GLATTSTEIN, Law Student, FONDA SHEN, Law Student (Lindsay Ragsdale, Law Student, Fiona Doherty, Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, Daniel Habib, Federal Defenders of New York, on the brief), Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, New Haven, CT.

Appeal from the July 30, 2025 judgment of the United States District Court for the

Eastern District of New York (Kuntz, J.).

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED,

AND DECREED that the judgment of the District Court is VACATED in part and the

case is REMANDED.

Defendant-Appellant Reinaldo Davis appeals from the District Court’s judgment

revoking his term of supervised release, sentencing him to 18 months’ imprisonment and

24 additional months of supervised release, and imposing conditions of supervised

release that, inter alia, require him to comply with the Probation Department’s Computer

and Internet Monitoring Program (“CIMP”). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the

underlying facts, the procedural history, and the issues on appeal, which we reference

only as necessary to explain our decision to vacate the relevant part of the District Court’s

judgment.

2 I. Background

Davis pled guilty in the District of Vermont to distribution of cocaine base in

violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a) and 841(b)(1)(C). He was sentenced to a prison term of

eighteen months’ imprisonment and three years’ supervised release. Upon finishing his

term of imprisonment, Davis’s supervision was transferred to the Eastern District of New

York. After his release, Davis’s Probation Officer issued a violation of supervised release

(“VOSR”) report, alleging that Davis violated four conditions of his supervised release.

Relevant here, the report alleged that Davis committed rape 1 and thus violated the release

condition prohibiting him from committing another federal, state, or local crime.

The District Court held a revocation hearing, prior to which the government

sought to admit four out-of-court statements related to the alleged rape: “(1) a recording

of the 911 call reporting the rape; (2) video footage from a police officer’s body-worn

camera, recording the Victim’s statements in the hours after the rape occurred; (3) the

Victim’s statements to a U.S. Probation Officer a week after the rape; and (4) text messages

between the Victim and Defendant shortly after the rape.” App’x at 54. The District

Court admitted these statements over Davis’s objection and, relying primarily on this

evidence, concluded that “[t]he Government presented sufficient evidence at the

revocation hearing to prove by a preponderance of the evidence [Davis] raped or

committed sexual misconduct against the Victim.” Id. at 189–91.

1 Davis was not charged in state court with any offense arising out of the alleged rape.

3 Having found that Davis violated his conditions of supervised release, the District

Court imposed a sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment followed by 24 months of

supervised release. The District Court also imposed conditions of supervised release

including, inter alia, that Davis comply with the Probation Department’s CIMP

requirements. The CIMP conditions require Davis to allow Probation to install

monitoring software and hardware on his electronic devices that “is authorized to

capture and analyze all data processed by and/or contained on the device including the

geolocation of the device.” Id. at 244.

II. Standard of Review

We “review admissibility determinations made during a revocation hearing for

abuse of discretion,” United States v. Diaz, 986 F.3d 202, 208 (2d Cir. 2021), and we likewise

“review the court’s balancing of the Rule 32.1 factors for abuse of discretion,” which

“encompasses clearly erroneous findings of fact and misapplications of the law,” United

States v. Williams, 443 F.3d 35, 46 (2d Cir. 2006). Our review of the District Court’s

sentencing determination and its imposition of the CIMP condition is likewise for abuse

of discretion. See United States v. Brooks, 889 F.3d 95, 100 (2d Cir. 2018) (sentence); United

States v. Lewis, 125 F.4th 69, 74 (2d Cir. 2025) (conditions of supervised release). Where a

defendant had a meaningful opportunity to raise an objection before the district court

and failed to do so, our review of that objection on appeal is for plain error. See United

States v. Ramos, 979 F.3d 994, 998 (2d Cir. 2020); United States v. McAdam, 165 F.4th 688,

4 695–96 (2d Cir. 2026).

III. Discussion

On appeal, Davis challenges (1) the District Court’s decision to admit the four out-

of-court statements over his objection; (2) the District Court’s imposition of an 18-month

term of imprisonment and a 24-month term of supervised release; and (3) the District

Court’s imposition of the CIMP conditions. Because the District Court did not make

findings sufficient to allow this Court to review its challenged admission of evidence, and

because that decision may have informed its finding as to the supervised release

violation—which, in turn, may have informed its sentencing decision—we vacate the

District Court’s judgment in as to Violation One and as to the sentence and we remand

for further proceedings consistent with this order. 2

A. Admission of Out-of-Court Statements as Evidence

The District Court abused its discretion by admitting the four out-of-court

statements without making adequate findings of good cause pursuant to Rule

32.1(b)(2)(C) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. 3 Under Rule 32.1(b)(2)(C), “at

2 Davis has not challenged the District Court’s finding that he violated three additional conditions of supervised release. See App’x at 191–94. We therefore affirm the District Court’s judgment as to those three violations.

3 The government urges that the 911 call was appropriately admitted for limited purposes because it fell within the hearsay exception for excited utterances. See Fed. R. Evid. 803(3). However, the District Court stated that it was admitting “the entirety of the 911 call” because it concluded that “the Government [met] the good cause showing required by Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1(b)(2)(C).” App’x at 58. Because we conclude the District Court’s Rule 32.1 analysis was insufficient, we need not express a view as to whether, and for what purposes, the 911 call could be considered under the excited utterance exception.

5 a revocation hearing, a defendant is entitled to ‘an opportunity to . . . question any

adverse witness unless the court determines that the interest of justice does not require

the witness to appear.’” United States v. Harris, 838 F.3d 98, 108 (2d Cir. 2016) (quoting

Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1(b)(2)(C)). That rule reflects the understanding that, while

“defendants in [VOSR] proceedings are not entitled to ‘the full panoply of rights’ that

criminal defendants generally enjoy,” they nonetheless have “‘the right to confront and

cross-examine adverse witnesses (unless the [court] specifically finds good cause for not

allowing confrontation).’” United States v. Carthen, 681 F.3d 94, 99–100 (2d Cir. 2012)

(alterations in original) (quoting Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 480, 489 (1972)).

Accordingly, if a proffered hearsay statement “would be inadmissible under the

Federal Rules of Evidence, a determination of ‘good cause’ requires the court to balance

‘the defendant’s interest in confronting the declarant[] against[] . . . the government’s

reasons for not producing the witness and the reliability of the proffered hearsay.’” Id.

(alterations in original) (quoting Williams, 443 F.3d at 45). A district court abuses its

discretion in its balancing of the Rule 32.1 factors “when (1) its decision rests on an error

of law (such as application of the wrong legal principle) or a clearly erroneous factual

finding, or (2) its decision . . . cannot be located within the range of permissible

decisions.” Id. (quoting United States v. Jones, 299 F.3d 103, 112 (2d Cir. 2002)).

The District Court recited the appropriate legal standard, see App’x at 55–56, and

identified the four out-of-court statements, see id. at 56–62. However, apart from a few

6 passing references to reliability, the Court did not discuss any of the three factors it was

required to balance: (1) the Court made no mention of the reasons for the declarants’

unavailability; (2) the Court did not analyze the strength of Davis’s confrontation

interests; (3) and the Court provided only glancing reference to the reliability of these

four out-of-court statements. Because it did not make any material findings, or conduct

any relevant balancing analysis, the District Court failed to “specifically find[] good

cause” for admitting the out-of-court statements without allowing Davis to confront the

declarants. Morrisey, 408 U.S. at 489.

Significantly, we do not conclude whether, on the current record, no court could

have concluded that some, or all, of the out-of-court statements were admissible under

Rule 32.1(b)(2)(C). Indeed, we have affirmed admission of hearsay evidence made by

declarants who feared reprisal due to the defendant’s “history of domestic violence in

general, and against [the declarant] specifically.” See United States v. Peguero, 34 F.4th 143,

155–56 (2d Cir. 2022). But where, as here, the District Court failed to identify a reason for

any declarant’s unavailability, let alone find good cause for the absence, we cannot

conclude that it conducted the analysis required by Rule 32.1(b)(2)(C).

Because we conclude the District Court abused its discretion by admitting the four

out-of-court statements without making required findings under Rule 32.1(b)(2)(C), we

therefore vacate the District Court’s finding that Davis violated his conditions of

7 supervised release by committing rape or sexual misconduct in violation of New York

law, and we remand for further proceedings consistent with this order. See App’x at 189.

B. Davis’s Sentence and Conditions of Supervised Release

Because the vacated violation may have informed Davis’s sentence, we likewise

vacate the sentence and the additional conditions of supervised release imposed by the

District Court. We emphasize two further points pertaining to sentencing proceedings

on remand. First, the District Court “cannot consider [18 U.S.C.] § 3553(a)(2)(A) when

revoking supervised release.” See Esteras v. United States, 606 U.S. 185, 195 (2025). Second,

we emphasize that “[t]he imposition of a special condition affecting a cognizable liberty

interest must be ‘supported by particularized findings that it does not constitute a greater

deprivation of liberty than reasonably necessary to accomplish the goals of sentencing.’”

United States v. Sims, 92 F.4th 115, 124–25 (2d Cir. 2024) (quoting United States v. Matta,

777 F.3d 116, 123 (2d Cir. 2015)). Indeed, “[i]n light of the constitutional rights implicated

by conditions of supervised release permitting monitoring of computer devices or

restricting access to the internet, we have repeatedly emphasized that such conditions

must be ‘narrowly tailored’ and ‘robustly supported’ by a district court.” United States v.

Oliveras, 96 F.4th 298, 316 n.8 (2d Cir. 2024) (quoting United States v. Eaglin, 913 F.3d 88,

91, 98 (2d Cir. 2019)). Accordingly, “we have not hesitated to remand monitoring

conditions where a less intrusive condition appeared to be a ‘viable option’ and the record

‘d[id] not explain why such [an alternative condition] was insufficient.’” Id. (quoting

8 Eaglin, 913 F.3d at 98) (alterations in original). On remand, the District Court must ensure

any sentencing decision pertaining to conditions of supervised release complies with

these standards.

IV. Conclusion

We have considered the government’s remaining arguments and find them to be

without merit. Accordingly, we VACATE the judgment of the District Court in part and

REMAND for proceedings consistent with this order.

FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court