Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-50123/USCOURTS-ca9-13-50123-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Rodolfo Gavilanes-Ocaranza
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

RODOLFO GAVILANES-OCARANZA,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 13-50123

D.C. No.

3:09-cr-01607-L-1

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of California

M. James Lorenz, Senior District Judge, Presiding

Submitted October 7, 2014*

Pasadena, California

Filed November 25, 2014

Before: Michael Daly Hawkins and Susan P. Graber,

Circuit Judges, and John W. Sedwick,** District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Graber

* The panel unanimously concludes that this case is suitable for decision

without oral argument. Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

** The Honorable John W. Sedwick, United States District Judge for the

District of Alaska, sitting by designation.

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2 UNITED STATES V. GAVILANES-OCARANZA

SUMMARY***

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed the district court’s revocation of

supervised release and the sentence imposed upon revocation.

The panel held that the revocation of supervised release

and the imposition of additional prison time do not violate the

Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a speedy trial, even when

the revocation and sentencing take place years after the

original conviction. The panel also held that Alleyne v.

United States, 133 S. Ct. 2151 (2013), does not affect the

validity of the determination in United States v. HuertaPimental, 445 F.3d 1220, 1224 (9th Cir. 2006), that the

revocation of supervised release and the imposition of

additional prison time pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3583 do not

violate the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury.

COUNSEL

Joan Kerry Bader, San Diego, California, for DefendantAppellant.

Alexandra F. Foster and Bruce Castetter, Assistant United

States Attorneys, and Laura E. Duffy, United States Attorney,

San Diego, California, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

 

*** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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UNITED STATES V. GAVILANES-OCARANZA 3

OPINION

GRABER, Circuit Judge:

Defendant Rodolfo Gavilanes-Ocaranza pleaded guilty to

being a removed alien found in the United States, a violation

of the terms of his federal supervised release. The district

court revoked Defendant’s supervised release and sentenced

him to an additional 12 months’ imprisonment. Defendant

raises several constitutional and other challenges to that

sentence. In this published opinion, we address only his Sixth

Amendment claims. We address his other arguments in an

unpublished memorandum disposition filed concurrentlywith

this opinion.

Because Defendant did not raise his Sixth Amendment

objections before the district court, we review for plain error,

United States v. Ameline, 409 F.3d 1073, 1078 (9th Cir. 2005)

(en banc), and we affirm. We hold that the revocation of

supervised release and the imposition of additional prison

time do not violate the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a

speedy trial, even when the revocation and sentencing take

place years after the original conviction. We also hold that

Alleyne v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2151 (2013), does not

affect the validity of our determination in United States v.

Huerta-Pimental, 445 F.3d 1220, 1224 (9th Cir. 2006), that

the revocation of supervised release and the imposition of

additional prison time pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3583 do not

violate the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

In 2009, Defendant pleaded guilty to attempted reentry

after removal, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. The district

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4 UNITED STATES V. GAVILANES-OCARANZA

court sentenced him to 33 months’ imprisonment and three

years’ supervised release. As a condition of his supervised

release, Defendant agreed that, “[i]f deported, excluded, or

allowed to voluntarily return to [his] country of origin,” he

would “[n]ot reenter the United States illegally.” He also

agreed not to “commit another federal, state or local crime.”

In 2012, Defendant pleaded guilty to being a removed

alien in the United States, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326. A

different district court sentenced him to 46 months’

imprisonment and three years’ supervised release. Defendant

then appeared in revocation proceedings before the district

court from the 2009 conviction and admitted the violation of

his initial supervised release. That court revoked Defendant’s

supervised release and sentenced him to 12 months’

imprisonment, to run consecutivelyto the 46-month sentence. 

Defendant timely appeals.

DISCUSSION

As a preliminary matter, Defendant argues that Supreme

Court and Ninth Circuit precedent on revocation of probation

and parole does not apply to revocation of supervised release,

because parolees and probationers are still serving their

sentences, while supervised releasees are not. In the present

context, though, there is no material distinction between

revocation of parole or probation and revocation of

supervised release. District courts are authorized to include

“as a part of the sentence a requirement that the defendant be

placed on a term of supervised release after imprisonment.” 

18 U.S.C. § 3583(a) (emphasis added). Moreover,

[s]upervised release and parole are

virtually identical systems. Under each, a

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UNITED STATES V. GAVILANES-OCARANZA 5

defendant serves a portion of a sentence in

prison and a portion under supervision outside

prison walls. If a defendant violates the terms

of his release, he may be incarcerated once

more under the terms of his original sentence. 

More specifically, a defendant’s original

sentence determines the length of the term of

parole (indirectly) or supervised release

(directly). It is also the original sentence that

establishes how long the defendant may be

required to serve following revocation in the

case of both parole and supervised release

violations. Finally, it is the original sentence

that is executed when the defendant is

returned to prison after a violation of the

terms of both parole and supervised release.

Revocation of parole is not a punishment

for a new offense, although the conduct on

which revocation is based may be punished

separately. For revocation purposes, the

conduct simply triggers the execution of the

conditions of the original sentence. Those

conditions may not be made more severe, nor

may the defendant’s term of reincarceration

after his violation be made more onerous, by

any act adopted after he was sentenced. In

this respect, there is no conceivable basis for

distinguishing between parole and supervised

release.

United States v. Paskow, 11 F.3d 873, 881 (9th Cir. 1993)

(footnote omitted). In Paskow, we held that parole and

supervised release are the same for the purposes of an ex post

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6 UNITED STATES V. GAVILANES-OCARANZA

facto analysis. Id. Relying on Paskow, we also have held

that revocations of parole, probation, and supervised release

are the same for double jeopardy purposes, because they all

constitute punishment for the underlying crime. United

States v. Soto-Olivas, 44 F.3d 788, 791 (9th Cir. 1995).

The similarities between revocation of parole or probation

and revocation of supervised release are equally salient in the

Sixth Amendment context. The Sixth Amendment applies

only to “criminal prosecutions.” U.S. Const. amend. VI. The

revocation of supervised release is not a criminal prosecution

for SixthAmendment purposes, because the violation “simply

triggers the execution of the conditions of the original

sentence.” Paskow, 11 F.3d at 881. We therefore conclude

that revocation of supervised release, revocation of parole,

and revocation of probation must be analyzed the same way

when we consider Sixth Amendment speedy trial and trial by

jury claims.

A. Speedy Trial

There is no Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial in

supervised release revocation proceedings, because those

proceedings are not part of a criminal prosecution and thus

the “full panoply of rights due a defendant in such a

proceeding does not apply.” United States v. Hall, 419 F.3d

980, 985 (9th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

A defendant does have a right to a reasonably prompt hearing

on revocation of supervised release, but that right is rooted in

the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, not in the Sixth

Amendment’s SpeedyTrial Clause. United States v. Santana,

526 F.3d 1257, 1259 (9th Cir. 2008).

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UNITED STATES V. GAVILANES-OCARANZA 7

Defendant does not challenge any purported delay in

holding the revocation hearing; indeed, the hearing was held

promptly after the violation occurred. Instead, he argues that

the revocation proceedings are an extension of the original

criminal prosecution for his 2009 violation of federal law and

that the four-year gap between the 2009 offense and the

revocation hearing violates his right to a speedy trial.1 That

argument is clearly foreclosed, because supervised release

arises “after the end of the criminal prosecution, including

imposition of sentence.” Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471,

480 (1972) (explaining why Sixth Amendment rights do not

apply to parole revocations). A fortiori, a violation of

supervised release also arises after the end of the criminal

prosecution. We previously have noted in passing that the

Speedy Trial Clause does not apply to proceedings to revoke

supervised release. Santana, 526 F.3d at 1259. To the extent

that our precedent is ambiguous on that point, we eliminate

that ambiguity by holding now that there is no Sixth

Amendment right to a speedy “trial” in supervised release

revocation proceedings and that a revocation proceeding is

neither its own criminal prosecution nor an extension of the

original criminal prosecution that led to the imposition of

supervised release.

1 Defendant also refers to violations of the Speedy Trial Act without

explaining what those violations might be. Regardless, the Act does not

apply. The time limits in the Speedy Trial Act focus on the time between

indictment or entry of a not-guilty plea and the start of a trial. 18 U.S.C.

§ 3161(a), (c). Unless the plea is withdrawn, there appears to be no postguilty-plea application of the Speedy Trial Act. United States v.

Tinklenberg, 579 F.3d 589, 594 (6th Cir. 2009), aff’d on other grounds,

131 S. Ct. 2007 (2011).

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8 UNITED STATES V. GAVILANES-OCARANZA

B. Trial by Jury

We have held that the supervised release system under

18 U.S.C. § 3583, including revocation of that release and

imposition of additional prison time as a result of a violation

of a term of the release, does not violate a defendant’s right

to trial by jury. Huerta-Pimental, 445 F.3d at 1224. 

Defendant contends that Alleyne v. United States, 133 S. Ct.

2151 (2013), effectively overruled Huerta-Pimental. We

disagree.

In Alleyne, 133 S. Ct. at 2155, the Supreme Court relied

on its decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466

(2000), and held that the Sixth Amendment guarantees the

right to have any fact that increases a statutory minimum

sentence proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Thus,

Alleyne deals with the imposition of a sentence in the first

instance after a criminal conviction; it says nothing about the

imposition of additional prison time after a violation of

supervised release. Alleyne therefore does not affect the

validity of our holding in Huerta-Pimental. Cf. Santana,

526 F.3d at 1262 (rejecting a similar challenge to the

authority of Huerta-Pimental, because “Cunningham[ v.

California, 549 U.S. 270 (2007),] interprets the Sixth

Amendment, and therefore it is not relevant to revocation

proceedings”).

We hold that, after Alleyne, Huerta-Pimental remains

good law. We reaffirm that the revocation of supervised

release and the imposition of additional prison time pursuant

to 18 U.S.C. § 3583 do not violate a defendant’s right to trial

by jury.

AFFIRMED.

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