United States v. Weeks

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: September 3, 2025
• Docket: 24-7590
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS SEP 3 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

No. 24-7590 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, D.C. No. 1:18-cr-00014-SPW-1 Plaintiff - Appellee,

v. MEMORANDUM* GEORGE LOWRY WEEKS,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Montana Susan P. Watters, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted August 22, 2025** Portland, Oregon

Before: CALLAHAN, M. SMITH, and MENDOZA, Circuit Judges.

George Lowry Weeks appeals the district court’s revocation of his

supervised release. Weeks claims that he was denied his due process confrontation

right because the district court erroneously relied on Officer Hilario’s hearsay

statements to establish that he used a controlled substance (methamphetamine), one

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). 1 of the three conditions of supervised release that he violated. We have jurisdiction

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We affirm.

“[E]very releasee is guaranteed the right to confront and cross-examine

adverse witnesses at a revocation hearing, unless the government shows good

cause for not producing the witnesses.” United States v. Comito, 177 F.3d 1166,

1170 (9th Cir. 1999) (citing Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 489 (1972)).

However, we will affirm a sentence if the violation of this right “was harmless

beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 1170.

Any error regarding Weeks’s right to confront and cross-examine Officer

Hilario was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See id. Weeks admitted to two

other violations—including failure to report to probation—which provided a

sufficient basis to revoke his supervision. See United States v. Daniel, 209 F.3d

1091, 1094 (9th Cir.), amended by, 216 F.3d 1201 (9th Cir. 2000); 18 U.S.C. §

3565(a)(2). Because each of Weeks’s supervision violations were grade C, the

guideline range was 7 to 13 months’ imprisonment. See U.S.S.G. §§ 7B1.1(b),

7B1.4(a). That range would apply no matter how many grade C violations there

were. In explaining its chosen sentence, the district court focused on Weeks’s long

history of refusing to comply with supervision. Indeed, the court devoted nearly

five pages of the transcript to Weeks’s lack of compliance before mentioning the

methamphetamine violation in a single sentence. Likewise, the government

2 focused on Weeks’s disregard for complying with his terms of supervision and

mentioned the methamphetamine violation only once and to explain that Weeks

suffered from a serious addiction. Thus, we affirm Weeks’s 10-month sentence

because we find the sentence would have been the same without the disputed

violation.

AFFIRMED.