United States v. Ereo Demarious Scates

KETHLEDGE, Chief Judge. Ereo Scates appeals his 46-month prison sentence for violating the conditions of his supervised release. We reject his arguments and affirm.

I.

Over a period of several years, Scates committed several felonies that eventually subjected him to terms of imprisonment and supervised release. Specifically, in 2009, a Tennessee county circuit court convicted Scates of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, a felony offense in Tennessee. In May 2013, Scates and another man attempted to rob someone of cocaine; both men carried guns during the attempted robbery. A few months later, in August 2013, officers with the Jackson Police Department apprehended Scates and found him in possession of two firearms. Sometime during the next few months, he became a fugitive. In January 2014, officers from the Jackson Police Department assisted the U.S. Marshals Service in apprehending Scates; again they found him in possession of two firearms. Scates eventually pled guilty, across two separate cases in the Western District of Tennessee, to attempted robbery, using a weapon during a violent crime, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was released from prison under supervised release in August 2023.

Less than a year later, in June 2024, at least seven people in Bolivar County, Tennessee, overdosed on narcotics. Law enforcement revived most of the victims with Narcan, but one of them died. Two survivors—J.B. Williams and Britz Hoyle—told investigators they had purchased cocaine from Scates. Specifically, Williams said that he had purchased cocaine from Scates on the day of his overdose, and that he had regularly purchased cocaine from Scates before then. Hoyle similarly told investigators that she had purchased cocaine from Scates on the day of her overdose. Officers tested cocaine found in Hoyle’s home that day and found that it was laced with fentanyl. Both victims also provided substantial identifying information about Scates. Williams identified Scates in a photograph, said that Scates drove a black Chevy Tahoe, and identified a location about a block from the home of Scates’s mother as the location where Williams had bought the laced cocaine. Hoyle likewise said that Scates typically drove a black Chevy Tahoe, but she added that, on the day of her overdose, Scates had met her while driving a white Acura. Investigators confirmed that Scates’s Tahoe was often in the vicinity of the locations where, according to Williams and Hoyle, Scates had sold them cocaine.

In addition, investigators collected many text messages from Williams’s phone. At various points, Scates texted Williams, “You got that $20 for me”; “you cool”; “you straight”; “I’m in the city”; “I’m in pocket”; and “I’ll come to you if I need to.” The messages between Scates and Williams also mentioned the names of two known drug dealers.

The district court thereafter held a revocation hearing. At the hearing, Agent Christopher Burkeen testified that the messages between Scates and Williams indicated that Scates was engaged in drug-related activity. Ultimately the Court found that Scates had been selling crack cocaine laced with fentanyl and that he had evaded and resisted arrest. The court was troubled that, while Scates was on supervised release, “he was continuing to be involved in illegal activities,” and that, in light of the overdoses, it was a “very dangerous, and very troublesome, very impactful type of substance that was involved here.” The court sentenced Scates to 46 months’ imprisonment. This appeal followed.

II.

A.

Scates first argues that the district court improperly relied on Agent Burkeen’s characterization of the messages between Scates and Williams—and that, without that testimony, the government lacked evidence to support the finding that Scates sold narcotics. Scates failed to object to Agent Burkeen’s testimony during the hearing, however, so we review only for plain error. See United States v. Kilpatrick, 798 F.3d 365, 378 (6th Cir. 2015).

In a hearing to revoke supervised release, the Federal Rules of Evidence generally do not apply. United States v. Phillips, 640 F.3d 154, 157 (6th Cir. 2011). Hearsay—along with other testimony that the Rules of Evidence generally disallow—instead is “permissible at a sentencing hearing so long as it has some minimum indicia of reliability.” United States v. Darwich, 337 F.3d 645, 656 (6th Cir. 2003). That standard is a “relatively low hurdle” that requires only “some evidentiary basis beyond mere allegation.” United States v. Johnson, 732 F.3d 577, 583 (6th Cir. 2013).

Here, Scates does not contend that the district court should have excluded Burkeen’s testimony. Rather, Scates says that Burkeen’s testimony amounted to “conclusions” that unduly influenced the court. But Burkeen testified—based on his experience reviewing thousands of text messages from known drug dealers—that many of Scates’s messages to Williams here were code for various aspects of selling drugs (e.g., “I’m in pocket,” which Burkeen testified to mean that Scates had drugs ready to sell). The district court was entitled to find that testimony credible, and to rely on it in the court’s findings of fact. That is all the more true given that Burkeen’s testimony was corroborated by other evidence in the record, including the independent identifications by Williams and Hoyle of Scates as the person who sold them drugs.

Scates counters that our decision in United States v. Glenn supports a different outcome. But Glenn involved an officer’s testimony during a jury trial, where, unlike here, the Federal Rules of Evidence did apply. See 146 F.4th 485, 491 (6th Cir. 2025). And the government here had much more corroborating evidence than the government had in Glenn. The district court did not plainly err in finding that Scates had, “in fact, [been] selling crack cocaine” laced with fentanyl.

B.

Scates otherwise argues that the district court impermissibly relied upon retributive considerations in sentencing him for his supervised-release violation. See generally Esteras v. United States, 606 U.S. 185 (2025). Scates did not make that argument in the district court, so we review only for plain error. See United States v. Williams, 998 F.3d 716, 733 (6th Cir. 2021). There was none: the court was entitled to consider the “seriousness of the supervised-release violation.” United States v. Sims, 161 F.4th 455, 459 (6th Cir. 2025). And the court’s comments regarding the dangerousness of the drugs that Scates sold as part of the violation here fell clearly within that consideration. The court did not plainly err on this point.

The district court’s judgment is affirmed.