United States v. Crawford

UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,  Plaintiff-Appellee, v.  No. 02-4789 VERN ODELL CRAWFORD, Defendant-Appellant.  Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, at Harrisonburg. Jackson L. Kiser, Senior District Judge. (CR-95-108) Submitted: March 3, 2003 Decided: March 17, 2003 Before NIEMEYER, MICHAEL, and KING, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. COUNSEL Michael T. Hemenway, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. John L. Brownlee, United States Attorney, Thomas Linn Eckert, Assistant United States Attorney, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See Local Rule 36(c). 2 UNITED STATES v. CRAWFORD OPINION PER CURIAM: Vern Odell Crawford appeals the district court’s order revoking his supervised release. Crawford was convicted on one count of obstruct- ing justice and two counts of wilfully failing to file tax returns. Craw- ford was sentenced to fifty-one months incarceration and three years of supervised release. Crawford’s release entailed two conditions rele- vant on appeal: Crawford was to provide his Probation Officer with "access to any requested financial information" and Crawford was to pay a $100,000 fine, and $5,934.65 in prosecution costs. The district court entered an order revoking Crawford’s release based on his fail- ure to comply with these terms. First, Crawford argues the district court erred in revoking his supervised release; specifically, Crawford argues that he failed to make payments towards his fine and prosecution costs because he lacked the funds to make any payments, and that he never failed to disclose financial information to his Probation Officer because he never had financial information to disclose. This Court reviews a dis- trict court’s revocation of an individual’s supervised release for abuse of discretion. United States v. Copley, 978 F.2d 829, 831 (4th Cir. 1992). Crawford’s claim is meritless. The Government established Crawford failed to comply with the disclosure and payment terms of his supervised release. 18 U.S.C. § 3603 (2000); United States v. Woodrup, 86 F.3d 359, 361 (4th Cir. 1996). Second, Crawford alleges his Probation Officer and the district court conducted an ex parte meeting to discuss his case, in violation of his constitutional rights. Crawford cannot prevail on this claim absent a showing of plain error. See United States v. Promise, 255 F.3d 150, 154 (4th Cir. 2001). The record does not demonstrate an ex parte meeting occurred, and Crawford cannot establish an ex parte meeting would violate his constitutional rights, in any event. United States v. Washington, 146 F.3d 219, 223 (4th Cir. 1998); United States v. Johnson, 935 F.2d 47, 49-50 (4th Cir. 1991). Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s order revoking Craw- ford’s supervised release. We dispense with oral argument because UNITED STATES v. CRAWFORD 3 the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materi- als before the court and argument would not aid in the decisional pro- cess. AFFIRMED