UNITED STATES v. JONES (2020)

SUMMARY ORDER

Algere Jones appeals from the November 16, 2018 judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Sullivan, J.) convicting him of violating his supervised release by (1) committing a narcotics offense; and (2) traveling to Pennsylvania without permission. Jones was sentenced principally to 36 months’ imprisonment, to be followed by a life term of supervised release. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and specification of issues for review.

Jones primarily challenges his conviction on the ground that the exclusionary rule for Fourth Amendment violations applies in supervised release hearings and bars the admission of drugs seized from the car he was driving. That argument is foreclosed by this Court’s recent decision in United States v. Hightower, 950 F.3d 33 (2d Cir. 2020), which holds that the exclusionary rule does not apply in federal proceedings to revoke supervised release. Nor do we find any merit in Jones’s remaining argument that the district court erred in finding that the evidence credibly established that the drugs tested by the forensics lab were the same substance recovered from the car. See, e.g., United States v. Gomez, 877 F.3d 76, 96-97 (2d Cir. 2017) (noting that a district court’s credibility determinations are given “special deference” on appeal (internal quotation marks omitted)).

We have considered the remainder of Jones’s arguments and find them to be without merit. Accordingly, the order of the district court hereby is AFFIRMED.