United States v. Thomas

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: September 10, 2025
• Docket: 24-6126
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS SEP 10 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 24-6126 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellee, 3:16-cr-01284-MMA-1 v. MEMORANDUM* RAYSHAN THOMAS, AKA Bones, AKA Rayshawn Thomas, AKA Rashawn Thomas,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Michael M. Anello, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted August 20, 2025 Pasadena, California

Before: BERZON, BENNETT, and SUNG, Circuit Judges.

Defendant Rayshan Thomas appeals from the district court’s revocation of his

supervised release and resentencing. Thomas challenges the presentation of multiple

out-of-court statements made by his wife’s minor daughter M1 and minor son M2 at

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. his revocation of supervised release hearing.1 M1 and M2’s statements were the

Government’s primary evidence to support the allegation that Thomas violated the

terms of his supervised release on June 9, 2024, by entering his wife’s residence

through a window. Absent those statements, there would have been insufficient

evidence on which to base a violation finding as to that date. We have jurisdiction

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm.

1. The district court did not err by admitting the children’s out-of-court

statements during the revocation proceedings. “Whether a defendant has received

due process at a revocation proceeding is a mixed question of law and fact we review

de novo.” United States v. Perez, 526 F.3d 543, 547 (9th Cir. 2008). We apply a

balancing test to determine whether a defendant’s due process right to confrontation

was violated at the revocation hearing, weighing his interest in confronting the

witness against the government’s good cause for failing to procure her. See United

States v. Martin, 984 F.2d 308, 310 (9th Cir. 1993). The strength of Thomas’s right

to confront M1 and M2 depends on “the importance of the hearsay evidence to the

court’s ultimate finding and the nature of the facts to be proven by the hearsay

evidence.” United States v. Comito, 177 F.3d 1166, 1171 (9th Cir. 1999). The more

important the evidence is to the district court’s finding or “the more subject to

1 For privacy reasons, we refer to Thomas’s wife’s minor children as M1 and M2. At the time of Thomas’s revocation of supervised release hearing, M1 was a sixteen-year-old female and M2 was a fifteen-year-old male.

2 24-6126 question the accuracy and reliability of the proffered evidence, the greater

[Thomas’s] interest in testing it by exercising his right to confrontation.” Id.

There were many indicators that the children’s out-of-court statements were

reliable. They could readily identify Thomas because he is their stepfather. M1 is

the person who called the police. The children’s conversations with the police

officer were recorded on camera. Both made their statements shortly after the police

were called. The accounts were consistent. The officer took M1’s statement in a

question-and-answer format.

There were also other incidents similar to the one that the children reported,

lending further credence to their statements. The district court previously found

Thomas violated the terms of his supervised release, in largely the same manner,

after he admitted to “enter[ing] [the] dwelling through a window” on October 5,

2022. Also, it is undisputed that on June 23, 2024, Thomas violated the terms of his

supervised release by entering his wife’s residence when M1 was home. We also

note that Thomas’s June 9 violation was one of five Grade C violations found in the

same hearing and together constituting the grounds for revocation of supervised

release, including the closely similar violation on June 23. Thomas conceded the

June 9 violation’s inclusion did “not meaningfully impact the sentencing

guidelines.”

Turning to good cause, the Government offered that “we’re talking about

3 24-6126 children” and that it would be highly inconvenient “considering the type of hearing

. . . to take them out of school for a hearing like this where the other factors support

admission.” Because the children’s statements were sufficiently reliable, the district

court did not err in finding that there was adequate good cause to excuse their

absence. The district court did not violate Thomas’s due process rights to confront

witnesses against him by admitting and considering the children’s out-of-court

statements.

2. The district court did not improperly consider the children’s out-of-court

statements in imposing an above-Guidelines sentence. A district court does not

violate a defendant’s due process rights by relying on out-of-court statements during

sentencing if the statements were “substantively reliable.” United States v. Franklin,

18 F.4th 1105, 1124–25 (9th Cir. 2021). Substantive reliability is a “factual question

that we review for clear error.” Id. at 1125.

The district court did not clearly err in finding that the children’s statements

were substantively reliable because, as discussed, there were many indicators that

the out-of-court statements were substantively reliable. Accordingly, the district

court’s consideration of the out-of-court statements at sentencing did not violate

Thomas’s due process rights.

AFFIRMED.

4 24-6126