Joseph Colvin pleaded guilty in 2014 to conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and heroin. After serving part of his sentence, he began a term of supervised release in 2019. In 2021, he violated his release conditions and was sentenced to nine months of incarceration followed by a new three-year term. In 2025, Colvin was arrested in Colorado for assault, heroin possession, and unauthorized use of a financial device. A police report from that arrest detailed that officers found a loaded, stolen revolver in his backpack. Colvin was transferred to Wyoming to face a petition to revoke his supervised release, alleging he failed to report for drug testing, failed to notify his probation officer of a move, was unreachable for months, and committed a new crime. At the revocation hearing, Colvin waived his preliminary hearing and admitted to the four violations. The government sought to admit the 56-page police report to support an upward variance from the Sentencing Guidelines range. Colvin objected, arguing the report was inadmissible hearsay and that the late disclosure prevented him from contesting it, though he did not request a continuance. The district court overruled the objections and sentenced Colvin to three years of imprisonment.
The Tenth Circuit reviewed the sentence for procedural and substantive reasonableness, noting that a sentence is reasonable if the district court did not abuse its discretion. The court focused on Colvin's two arguments regarding the police report. First, regarding the hearsay objection, the court reiterated that district courts are not strictly bound by the Federal Rules of Evidence at sentencing. Instead, hearsay may be considered if it bears 'some minimal indicia of reliability,' a standard required by due process. The court found this standard met because the police report was corroborated by the fact that officers actually seized a loaded firearm during Colvin's arrest. Second, regarding the timing of the disclosure, the court stated that the preferred sanction for untimely disclosure is a continuance, and exclusion of evidence is rare absent bad faith. The court noted that Colvin did not request a continuance and did not argue that the government acted in bad faith. Furthermore, the government had disclosed the existence of the report in the probation office's violation report prior to the hearing, meaning Colvin's failure to receive a photocopy was not prejudicial.
This decision reinforces the broad discretion of district courts to admit hearsay evidence at supervised release revocation hearings, provided the evidence has minimal indicia of reliability. It also establishes that defendants must actively request a continuance to remedy untimely disclosure of evidence; failing to do so waives the objection unless bad faith is shown. The case was affirmed, meaning Colvin's three-year sentence stands, and the decision serves as persuasive authority for the admissibility of police reports in similar sentencing contexts within the Tenth Circuit.
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