Defendant’s admissions during mandatory sex offender treatment may be used during proceedings to revoke his supervised release because the right against self-incrimination does not prohibit the use of an admission during these proceedings. While on supervised release, Hulen admitted violating the conditions of his release in the course of his mandatory sex offender treatment. Based on those admissions, he was terminated from treatment and the district court revoked his supervised release. On appeal, he argued the use of his statements to his treatment provider to revoke his supervised release violated his right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment. Held: Affirmed. The Fifth Amendment provides that no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. However, it is established that parole revocation is not part of a criminal case that would confer various rights due to defendants in criminal proceedings. Rather, it is part of the “matrix of punishment” arising out of the original crime. Applying the same reasoning to supervised release, the court here determined that a proceeding to revoke supervised release also is not a criminal case for purposes of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. “Revocation deprives a probationer only of the conditional liberty properly dependent on observation of special restrictions. [Citation.] The Fifth Amendment does not provide a right to avoid the consequences of violating those special restrictions.” The court noted that if an effort had been made to charge and convict Hulen for a new crime based on his admissions, he would presumably be able to claim the benefit of the Fifth Amendment.

The full opinion is available on the court’s website here: http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2018/01/10/16-30160.pdf