Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-88-02658/USCOURTS-ca10-88-02658-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Nicky David Parker
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

PUBLISH 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

FILED 

Uoite-d Sctt(t:J Court of Appeals 

·r ench Circuit 

AUG B 1989 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

v. 

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No. 88-2658 

NICKY DAVID PARKER, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA 

(D.C. No. 87-57-01-CR) 

Submitted on the briefs: 

- Stephen J. Greubel, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Tulsa, 

Oklahoma, for Defendant-Appellant. 

Roger Hilfiger, United States Attorney, and Paul G. Hess, 

Assistant United States Attorney, District of Oklahoma, Muskogee, 

Oklahoma, for Plaintiff-Appellee. 

Before MCKAY and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges, and BRATTON, District 

Judge*. 

McKAY, Circuit Judge. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

* The Honorable Howard C. Bratton, United States Senior District 

Judge for the District of New Mexico, sitting by designation. 

Appellate Case: 88-2658 Document: 01019831588 Date Filed: 08/08/1989 Page: 1 
34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The cause is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. 

On February 25, 1988, Nicky David Parker pled guilty to a 

single count charge of kidnapping under 18 u.s.c. § 1201 (1982). 

The trial court sentenced the defendant under section 1201 to a 

term of imprisonment of seventy-five years and ordered under 18 

U.S.C. § 4205(b)(l) (1982) that he would become eligible for 

parole after serving a minimum term of twenty-five years. The 

defendant then moved for correction of illegal sentence, contending that his sentence is illegal because the term he must serve in 

order to become eligible for parole exceeds the legal maximum 

allowed under 18 U.S.C. § 4205(a) (1982). He appeals the trial 

court's denial of this motion and urges us to,overrule United 

States v. O'Driscoll, 761 F.2d 589 (10th Cir. 1985), cert. denied, 

475 U.S. 1020 (1986), in which we held that the sentencing court 

in that case properly applied section 4205(b)(l) in ordering that 

the defendant would become eligible for parole after serving 

ninety-nine years of a three-hundred-year sentence imposed under 

section 1201. 

The legality of the defendant's sentence is a question of law 

which we review de nova. See United States v. Mccrae, 714 F.2d 

83, 84 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1001 (1983). Under section 1201 the defendant may be "punished by imprisonment for any 

term of years or for life." 18 u.s.c. § 1201 (1982). Section 

4205 governs time of eligibility for release on parole. Although 

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Appellate Case: 88-2658 Document: 01019831588 Date Filed: 08/08/1989 Page: 2 
the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, Pub. L. 98-473, 

§ 218(a)(S), 98 Stat. 1837, 2027 (1984) (the "Act"), repealed section 4205, it also enacted a Savings Provision which provides that 

The following provisions of law in effect on the day 

before the effective date of this Act shall remain in 

effect for five years after the effective date as to an 

individual who committed an offense ..• before the 

effective date •.• : 

(A) Chapter 311 [§§ 4201-18] of title 18, United 

States Code •••. 

Pub. L. 98-473, § 235(b)(l)(A), 98 Stat. 1837, 2032 (1984), 

amended~ Criminal Law and Procedure Technical Amendments Act of 

1986, Pub. L. 99-646, § 35; 100 Stat. 3592, 3599 (1986) and Sentencing Act of 1987, Pub. L. 100-182, § 2, 101 Stat. 1266 (1987). 1 

The effective date of the Act is November 1, 1987. Pub. L. 

98-473, S 235(a)(l), 98 Stat. 1837, 2031 (1984), amended~-

Sentencing Reform Amendments Act of 1985, Pub. L. 99-217, § 4, 99 

Stat. 1728 (1985). The defendant committed this offense on 

September 22, 1987. Because the defendant committed the offense 

to which he pled guilty before the effective date of the Act, his 

sentence is still governed by section 4205. 

Subsections (a) and (b) of section 4205 provide that 

(a) Whenever confined and serving a definite term 

or terms of more than one year, a prisoner shall be eligible for release on parole after serving one-third of 

such term or terms or after serving ten years of a life 

1 With regard to this Savings prov1s1on, we commend defendant's 

counsel for fulfilling the ethical and clearly difficult duty of 

.advising us of authority adverse to his client's interest. 

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Appellate Case: 88-2658 Document: 01019831588 Date Filed: 08/08/1989 Page: 3 
sentence or of a sentence of over thirty years, except 

to the extent otherwise provided by law. 

(b) Upon entering a judgment of conviction, the 

court having jurisdiction to impose sentence, when in 

its opinion the ends of justice and best interest of the 

public require that the defendant be sentenced to 

imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, may (1) designate in the sentence of imprisonment imposed a minimum 

term at the expiration of which the prisoner shall 

become eligible for parole, which term may be less than 

but shall not be more than one-third of the maximum sentence imposed by the court , or (2) the court may fix 

the maximum sentence·of imprisonment to be served in 

which event the court may specify that the prisoner may 

be released on parole at such time as the Commissioner 

may determine. 

18 u.s.c. § 42.05(a), (b) (1) (1982) (emphasis added). In United 

States v. O'Driscoll, the leading case in our circuit construing 

section 4205, we held that·the trial court properly applied section 4205(b)(l) in ordering that a defendant would become eligible 

for parole after serving ninety-nine years of a three~hundred-year 

sentence imposed under section 1201. 761 F.2d at 596. 

The defendant contends that O'Driscoll is incorrect because 

section 4205(a) limits the term a defendant must serve in order to 

become eligible for parole to a legal maximum of ten years. He 

also argues that O'Driscoll must be overruled because section 

4205(b)(l) may only be used by a trial court to advance the date 

of parole eligibility, not postpone it as well. Thus, under the 

defendant's reading of section 4205, subsection (a) creates a 

standard one-third-of-the-sentence term, which determines parole 

eligibility, while subsection (b)(l) gives the sentencing court 

the option of advancing the date of parole eligibility to one preceding the expiration of one-third of the defendant's sentence. 

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Appellate Case: 88-2658 Document: 01019831588 Date Filed: 08/08/1989 Page: 4 
, ' We need not address whether O' Dr is coll was correctly decided or 

reasoned because we find that the defendant's sentence under section 4205 must be affirmed on other grounds. 

Our statutory analysis -i•must begin with the language of the 

statute itself." Touche Ross & Co. v. Redington, 442 U.S. 560, 

568 (1979). Under the plain language of section 4205, subsection 

(a) applies to a federal prisoner who is "confined and serving a 

definite term or terms of more than one year." 18 u.s.c. 

§ 4205(a) .(1982). Subsection (a)'s introductory language is not 

mere verbiager it must have meaning .. We read this clause to mean 

that section 4205(a) applies to a prisoner who is serving time but 

whose parole eligibility date was not set by the sentencing court. 

In,that case, the prisoner auto~atically becomes eligible for 

release on parole after serving one~third of his sentence, or ten 

years, whichever is less. 2 See United States v. Gwaltney, 790 

F.2d 1378, 1387 (9th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1104 

(1987). 

In addition, subsection (a) sets the parole eligibility term 

"except as otherwise provided by law." 18 u.s.c. § 4205(a) 

(1982). Subsections (b)(l) and (b)(2) do just that. Section 

4205(b)(l) plainly provides that at the time of sentencing a trial 

2 We do not believe this subsection can be properly construed 

without reference to its initial clause. Disregard of that clause 

leads to an unwarranted and improper emphasis on the final 

clause's supposed direction that no defendant may serve more than 

ten years before he becomes e~igible for parole. 

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judge may avoid the operation of subsection (a)'s automatic eligibility provision by designating a minimum term, not ''more than 

one-third of the maximum sentence imposed,'' which must be served 

before the defendant becomes eligible for parole. Clearly, under 

subsection (b)(l) the sentencing court may sentence the defendant 

to any authorized term of years and at the same time designate 

that he will become eligible for parole after he has served onethird of the authorized sentence. Subsection (b)(2) also permits 

the sentencing court to avoid the operation of subsection (a). 

Under subsection (b)(2), the trial court defers its parole eligibility determination to the Parole Commissioner. In that 

instance, the statute sets no minimum term which must be served 

before the defendant becomes eligible for parole. Certainly 

Congress did not intend to create new provisions which would have 

no meaning under the existing subsection (a). 

Furthermore, we find no indication on the face of the statute 

that section 4205(b)(l) is intended solely as a tool for advancing 

the date of parole eligibility. In fact, our reading of subsection (b)(l) leads us to a contrary conclusion. In our view, subsection (b)(l) would not designate the same parole eligibility 

cap, one-third of the sentence, as subsection (a) if it were 

intended solely as an advancing provision. In other words, why 

would the statute create a one-third or ten-year ceiling in one 

provision, then allow a court to advance the parole eligibility 

date but repeat the one-third ceiling, especially absent the tenyear limitation? We think subsection (b)(l)'s one-third cap makes 

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· sense only if we construe subsection (b)(l) as an independent sentencing provision. 3 

In this case,. the trial court sentenced the defendant to a 

term of seventy-five years ("any term of years") and ordered that 

he would become eligible for parole after serving twenty-five 

years (a term ''not more than one-third of the maximum sentence 

imposed by the court"). Because the sentence and the parole 

eligibility term ordered by the trial court comply with 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1201 and 18 u.s.c. § 4205, the defendant's sentence is legal and 

must be affirmed. 

AFFIRMED. 

3 Because we believe that the language of the statute is plain, 

we need not engage in an extended discussion of the ambiguous 

legislative history in this area. 

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