United States of America v. Mario Gibson

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 24-1570
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Mario Gibson
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Northern District of Iowa - Cedar Rapids
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Submitted: October 22, 2024
Filed: February 28, 2025
[Unpublished]
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Before SHEPHERD, KELLY, and STRAS, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
After finding that Mario Gibson violated the conditions of supervised release,
the district court1 sent him back to prison. Although he argues the court should not
1 The Honorable C.J. Williams, then District Judge, now Chief Judge, United
States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa.

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have relied on videotaped witness statements or found that he committed theft and
forgery when he sold a car he did not own, we affirm.
While on patrol, a police officer pulled over a car with a missing headlight.
After running the vehicle identification number through a computer database, he
discovered that the owner had reported it stolen. To show that she was not the thief,
the driver produced a bill of sale. She then called her boyfriend, who provided a
phone number for the seller and said his name was “Mario.” The driver even
identified the seller from a driver’s license photograph and showed the officer where
she had bought the car. The phone number, the address, and the photograph all had
one thing in common: they belonged to Mario Gibson.
When it came time for Gibson’s revocation hearing, police could not locate
the driver or her boyfriend. In lieu of live testimony, the district court admitted the
officer’s body-camera footage, which had recorded their statements. We review this
evidentiary decision de novo, given that Gibson thinks it violated his due-process
right to confront the witnesses against him. See United States v. Sutton, 916 F.3d
1134, 1138 (8th Cir. 2019).
In making its decision, the district court properly evaluated both “why
confrontation [was] . . . impractical” and “the reliability of the evidence.” United
States v. Bell, 785 F.2d 640, 643 (8th Cir. 1986). In its view, the government did
the best it could to find the witnesses, see United States v. Harris, 112 F.4th 624,
627 (8th Cir. 2024), and the body-camera footage containing spontaneous statements
by both witnesses was sufficiently reliable to substitute for live testimony, see
United States v. Martin, 371 F.3d 446, 449 (8th Cir. 2004).
Between the recordings and the officer’s testimony, there was enough to
conclude by a preponderance of the evidence that Gibson had committed theft and
forgery. See United States v. Long, 843 F.3d 338, 340 (8th Cir. 2016) (applying
clear-error review). Nothing in this record “le[aves] [us] with the definite and firm

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conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Anderson v. City of Bessemer City,
470 U.S. 564, 573 (1985).
We accordingly affirm the judgment of the district court.
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