Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-94-03280/USCOURTS-ca10-94-03280-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Larry G. Thomas
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

LARRY G. THOMAS, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

OCT 11'1995 

No. 94-3280 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Kansas 

(D.C. No. 94-20024-01) 

Charles D. Dedmon, Assistant Federal Public Defender for the District of Kansas (David J. Phillips, Federal Public Defender, with 

him on the briefs), Topeka, Kansas, for Defendant-Appellant. 

Blair Watson, Assistant U.S. Attorney (Randall K. Rathbun, United 

States Attorney, and Leon J. Patton, Assistant U.S. Attorney, on 

the brief), District of Kansas, Kansas City, Kansas, for 

Plaintiff-Appellee. 

Before TACHA, LOGAN and BALDOCK, Circuit Judges. 

LOGAN, Circuit Judge. 

Appellate Case: 94-3280 Document: 01019280697 Date Filed: 10/17/1995 Page: 1 
This direct criminal appeal involves the interplay between 

the Assimilative Crimes Act (ACA), 18 u.s.c. § 13, requiring the 

application of state law, and the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. 

The case arises in the context of punishment for a misdemeanor 

when the state law and the federal sentencing guidelines treat 

home detention differently. 

In April 1992 defendant Larry G. Thomas pleaded guilty to a 

charge of driving under the influence (DUI), in violation of Kan. 

Stat. Ann. § 8-1567 as charged under the ACA. He committed the 

offense, a Class B misdemeanor, on the Fort Leavenworth (Kansas) 

military reservation. The magistrate judge sentenced him to probation with payment of a fine, performance of public service, and 

other conditions. In March 1993, however, the magistrate judge 

determined that defendant had violated the terms of his probation 

and extended probation for one year. This resentencing also 

included a six-month period of home detention with electronic 

monitoring. Although defendant successfully completed the home 

detention, he violated probation a second time. Therefore, in 

January 1994 the magistrate judge extended the probationary period 

for another six months and ordered defendant to perform additional 

hours of public service. 

Defendant then violated the terms of his probation a third 

time, after which the magistrate judge revoked probation and sentenced him to a ninety-day period of incarceration. Defendant 

appealed to the district court under Fed. R. Crim. P. 58(g) (2), 

arguing that because he completed six months in home detention 

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that he had already served the six-month statutory maximum sentence permitted under the Kansas statute. He argued that the 

federal sentencing guidelines credit home detention as incarceration and thus the magistrate judge imposed an illegal sentence. 

The district court affirmed the magistrate judge on alternative grounds. It held that 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b) gives the Bureau 

of Prisons primary authority to calculate sentencing credit and 

defendant therefore must exhaust his remedies with the Bureau of 

Prisons before seeking judicial review. Alternatively, the district court determined that if it did have jurisdiction defendant 

was not entitled to credit because Kansas law does not treat home 

detention as incarceration. 

We are satisfied that if defendant has already served the 

statutory maximum term of incarceration under the applicable sentencing scheme, additional incarceration would constitute an 

illegal sentence. This court has jurisdiction to review illegal 

sentences. United States v. Saucedo, 950 F.2d 1508, 1516-17 (lOth 

Cir. 1991) (citing United States v. Morgan, 346 U.S. 502, 506 

(1954)). It follows that on review of the magistrate judge's 

decision the district court had jurisdiction to determine whether 

the six months home detention defendant served constituted 

imprisonment that would foreclose the additional incarceration 

ordered by the magistrate judge. We turn to that issue. 

In arguing that his sentence is illegal defendant points to 

18 U.S.C. § 3551 and its requirement that sentences be in accordance with "this chapter." Section 3551(a) reads as follows: 

(a). In general. Except as otherwise specifically 

provided, a defendant who has been found guilty of an 

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Appellate Case: 94-3280 Document: 01019280697 Date Filed: 10/17/1995 Page: 3 
offense described in any Federal Statute, including 

sections 13 and 1153 of this title, other than an Act of 

Congress applicable exclusively in the District of 

Columbia or the Uniform Code of Military Justice, shall 

be sentenced in accordance with the provisions of this 

chapter so as to achieve the purposes set forth in subparagraphs (A) through (D) of section 3553(a) (2) to the 

extent that they are applicable in light of all the 

circumstances of the case. 

(Emphasis added.) That 11 chapter 11 includes §§ 3563 (b) (20) and 

3583(e) (4) which permit home detention as an alternative to 

incarceration. Defendant also points to U.S.S.G. §§ 5F1.2 and 

5B1.4(b) (20) which permit home detention as a condition of probation 11 but only as a substitute for imprisonment, 11 and to U.S.S.G. 

§ 5Cl.l(e) (3) which equates one day of home detention to one day 

of imprisonment. 

This case, however, involves the ACA. 11 The purpose of the 

Assimilative Crimes Act is to provide a method of punishing a 

crime committed on government reservations in the way and to the 

extent that it would have been punishable if committed within the 

surrounding jurisdiction. 11 United States v. Sain, 795 F.2d 888, 

890 (lOth Cir. 1986). Defendant was charged under§ 13(a) of the 

ACA, which reads: 

(a) Whoever is guilty of any act or omission 

which, although not made punishable by any enactment of 

Congress, would be punishable if committed or omitted 

within the jurisdiction of the State, Territory, Possession, or District in which such place is situated, by 

the laws thereof in force at the time of such act or 

omission, shall be guilty of a like offense and subject 

to a like punishment. 

18 U.S.C. § 13(a). Although the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, 

which provided the statutory framework for the sentencing guidelines, aimed to provide greater uniformity in federal sentencing, 

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Appellate Case: 94-3280 Document: 01019280697 Date Filed: 10/17/1995 Page: 4 
it did not initially reference the ACA. In 1990, however, Congress amended the Act to explicitly incorporate § 13, which is now 

referenced in 18 U.S.C. § 3551(a). Thus, the sentencing guidelines and the ACA are intended to coexist in a meaningful and 

effective fashion. See United States v. Harris, 27 F.3d 111, 115 

(4th Cir. 1994). 

The sentencing guidelines and the ACA are not always easily 

reconciled. In United States v. Garcia, 893 F.2d 250 (lOth Cir. 

1989), decided before the 1990 amendment, we stated that 

In the case of assimilative crimes, it is difficult to 

achieve fully the Sentencing Reform Act's goal of federal sentencing uniformity because the punishments for 

particular state offenses often vary significantly among 

the states. Therefore, it is not always possible to 

achieve uniformity in federal sentences for similar assimilative crimes that are committed in different 

states, and, at the same time, promote the Assimilative 

Crimes Act's goal of intrastate sentencing uniformity. 

Id. at 253. We held that the guidelines apply to ACA cases, 11 but 

that the sentence imposed may not exceed any maximum sentence and 

may not fall below any mandatory minimum sentence that is required 

under the law of the state in which the crimes occur. 11 Id. at 

251-52. 

Our task is eased in the instant case because 11 [t]he sentencing guidelines do not apply to any count of conviction that is 

a Class B or C misdemeanor or an infraction. 11 U.S.S.G. § 1B1.9. 

Without distinguishing between state or federal statutes the 

application note states, 11 [T]he court may impose any sentence 

authorized by statute for each count that is a Class B or C misdemeanor or an infraction, 11 id. cormnent. (n. 1) (emphasis added) . 

This application note also contains definitions for Class B and C 

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misdemeanors. The background information provides: "[f) or the 

sake of judicial economy, the Commission has exempted all Class B 

and C misdemeanors and infractions from the coverage of the 

guidelines." Id. comment. (backg'd.). We believe that § 3551(a) 

and § 1B1.9 of the sentencing guidelines compel the conclusion 

that the guidelines do not apply to the sentence at issue in the 

instant case. See United States v. Gibson, 896 F.2d 206, 210 (6th 

Cir. 1990) (rejecting argument that U.S.S.G. § 3D1 addressing 

multiple convictions applies when sentencing for Class B and C 

misdemeanors) . 

We are not impressed by defendant's several arguments concerning the impracticality of referring a federal court to state 

law in circumstances like the instant case. We see no "incredible 

bureaucratic difficulty," Brief of Appellant at 15, when the court 

is only dealing with Class Band C misdemeanors--which by definition involve incarceration of no more than six months. The Commission exempted Class B and C misdemeanors from guideline coverage "[f] or the sake of judicial economy," U.S.S.G. § 1Bl.9 comment. (backg'd.), apparently concluding that district courts would 

save time by imposing statutory sentences in certain cases. A 

defendant's original sentence for such a crime will generally be a 

straightforward proposition, and the short time of possible 

incarceration greatly diminishes the likelihood of probation 

revocation and resentencing proceedings. 

As to defendant's attempted distinction between sentencing 

and postsentencing orders, U.S.S.G. § 1B1.9 does not distinguish 

between original sentence and postsentencing proceedings. Whether 

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the punishment is imposed initially or modified after a probation 

violation does not alter the essential character of the sentence 

as a consequence for a conviction. 

Regarding defendant's argument that applying state law 

invites the sentencing disparity that the Sentencing Reform Act 

was intended to abolish, we answer that one of the purposes of the 

ACA is to punish a crime "committed on government reservations in 

the way and to the extent it would have been punishable if committed within the surrounding jurisdiction." Sain, 795 F.2d at 

890. The uniformity sacrificed at § 1B1.9 must be viewed in the 

context of the limited discretion available for sentencing Class B 

and C misdemeanors, and the heightened uniformity of those sentences with others imposed for the same crime in the surrounding 

jurisdiction. Thus we are satisfied that we should look to Kansas 

law to determine whether the sentence imposed is consistent with 

the Kansas sentencing scheme. 

Defendant was originally sentenced under Kan. Stat. Ann. § 8-

1567 (d). See also id. § 21-4502 (1) (b) (Class B misdemeanor carries maximum six-month sentence) . Kansas law states that probation for a misdemeanor may not exceed two years, and may be 

extended for additional fixed periods not to exceed two years. 

Id. § 21-4611{a). Home detention is authorized in circumstances 

such as the instant case. Id. § 21-4603b; see also id. § 21-

4603(b) (7). The magistrate judge, therefore, acted properly in 

both extending defendant's probation and imposing home detention. 

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Further, the Kansas courts have acknowledged that their sentencing procedures contemplate that a defendant's original sentence of probation, or probation plus incarceration, may exceed 

the statutory maximum period of incarceration. State v. Wells, 

861 P.2d 828, 830 (Kan. App. 1993) (approving a sixty-day prison 

term plus eighteen-month probationary period as not an abuse of 

discretion, after Class B misdemeanor conviction carrying maximum 

six-month prison term) . 

Finally, Kansas law is clear that a period of home detention 

is not the same as a term of imprisonment. State v. Scherzer, 869 

P.2d 729,. 737 (Kan. 1994). Kansas Statutes Annotated § 21-4614a 

omits home detention from the types of confinement to be credited 

toward a sentence as time already served. State v. Williams, 856 

P.2d 158, 162 (Kan. App. 1993) (analyzing the 1988 legislative 

changes that added the home detention option in § 21-4603b and the 

sentence credit provisions at § 21-4614a) . Therefore, the district court properly concluded that neither the federal statutes 

nor the federal sentencing guidelines prohibit the imposition of 

the ninety-day imprisonment ordered by the magistrate judge. 

This conclusion essentially moots the exhaustion question. 

The district court properly held that the Bureau of Prisons awards 

credits after defendant begins his sentence. See United States v. 

Jenkins, 38 F.3d 1143, 1144 (lOth Cir. 1994) (district court lacks 

jurisdiction to award sentence credit; rather Bureau of Prisons 

does so after sentencing, even if the government fails "to inform 

the district court that the Bureau of Prisons was the sole forum 

for computation of a credit"). The government acknowledges that 

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under Kansas law defendant is entitled to credit toward his 

ninety-day sentence for time served in drug treatment and for that 

portion of his sentence already served. The district court 

ordered a stay of execution of defendant's sentence to avoid his 

having served the entire sentence before we could decide his 

appeal. We will not presume that the Bureau of Prisons will 

improperly deny defendant credit for time served, but that aided 

by the guidance of this opinion it will promptly and properly 

award the credits to which defendant is entitled. 

AFFIRMED. 

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