PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.  No. 09-4833

DANA MICHAEL IDE,

Defendant-Appellant. 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of West Virginia, at Parkersburg.

Joseph R. Goodwin, Chief District Judge.

(6:01-cr-00256-3)

Argued: September 24, 2010

Decided: November 12, 2010

Before SHEDD and KEENAN, Circuit Judges, and

Robert J. CONRAD, Jr., Chief United States District Judge

for the Western District of North Carolina,

sitting by designation.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Keenan wrote the opinion, in which Judge Shedd and Judge Conrad joined.
COUNSEL

ARGUED: Jonathan D. Byrne, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL

PUBLIC DEFENDER, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Blaire L. Malkin, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES

ATTORNEY, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee. ON

BRIEF: Mary Lou Newberger, Federal Public Defender,

Christian M. Capece, Assistant Federal Public Defender,

OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER,

Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellant. Charles T. Miller,

United States Attorney, Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee.

OPINION

KEENAN, Circuit Judge:

In this appeal, we consider whether a term of supervised

release is tolled under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e) while a defendant

is held in pretrial detention on charges for which he is later

convicted. We agree with the majority of our sister circuits

that have addressed this question and hold that, under these

circumstances, the defendant’s supervised release term is

tolled. We therefore affirm the district court’s judgment.

I.

In February 2002, Dana Michael Ide entered a guilty plea

to one count of conspiracy to distribute heroin in violation of

21 U.S.C. § 846. The district court sentenced Ide to thirty

months’ imprisonment, and ordered a supervised release term

of three years to follow Ide’s prison sentence. Ide’s three-year

term of supervised release began when he was released from

federal prison on February 11, 2004.

Ide served about eleven months of his supervised release

term before being arrested by West Virginia state authorities

2 UNITED STATES v. IDE
in January 2005, on charges of participating in a conspiracy

to operate a methamphetamine laboratory. Ide did not post

bond and remained in state custody through the end of his

trial.

A jury convicted Ide on the state charges in September

2005. Ide was sentenced in November 2005 to a two-to-five

year term of imprisonment, and was given credit for the seven

months and six days that he spent in pretrial detention. Ide

was released from state custody in July 2007, after spending

twenty-two months and twenty-two days in prison since the

date of his conviction on the state charges.

In June 2009, the government petitioned the district court

to revoke Ide’s term of supervised release originally imposed

in May 2002 as part of his sentence on the federal charge. The

government alleged that Ide’s commission of an additional

state offense, along with his failure to file monthly reports,

violated the conditions of his supervised release.

Ide filed a motion to dismiss the revocation petition, contending that the district court lacked jurisdiction to consider

the government’s petition because it was not timely filed. Ide

argued that he had served about forty-one months of supervised release at the time the government’s revocation petition

was filed, a period longer than the thirty-six month supervisory period imposed by the district court. Ide’s calculation of

forty-one months included the period of seven months and six

days that he had spent in pretrial detention.

In response, the government contended that Ide’s term of

supervised release was tolled under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e) during his pretrial detention on the state charges. Therefore,

according to the government, Ide’s term of supervised release

would have expired on August 9, 2009, more than two months

after the government filed its revocation petition.

The district court agreed with the government’s interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e), and held that Ide’s supervised

UNITED STATES v. IDE 3
release term was tolled during the period prior to his conviction in which he was detained on the state charge. Thus, the

district court held that the government’s petition for revocation was timely filed, and denied Ide’s motion to dismiss.

The district court further held that Ide had violated the conditions of his supervised release. Based on Ide’s violation of

these conditions, the district court revoked Ide’s supervised

release term and sentenced Ide to a six-month prison term followed by a seven-month period of supervised release. Ide

timely filed a notice of appeal.

II.

The sole question presented in this appeal is whether Ide’s

term of supervised release was tolled under 18 U.S.C.

§ 3624(e) during his pretrial detention for an offense for

which he was later convicted. Ide does not challenge the district court’s holding that he violated the terms of his supervised release.

The parties agree that if Ide’s term of supervised release

was not tolled by the statute during his pretrial detention on

the state charge, the government’s revocation petition was

untimely. If, however, the statute tolled Ide’s term of supervised release during this period, the government’s petition to

revoke was timely filed and was properly before the district

court.

This issue of statutory interpretation presents a question of

law that we review de novo. See United States v. Segers, 271

F.3d 181, 183 (4th Cir. 2001). The period during which a term

of supervised release remains in effect is addressed in 18

U.S.C. § 3624(e), which states in relevant part:

The term of supervised release commences on the

day the person is released from imprisonment and

runs concurrently with any Federal, State, or local

4 UNITED STATES v. IDE
term of probation or supervised release or parole for

another offense to which the person is subject or

becomes subject during the term of supervised

release. A term of supervised release does not run

during any period in which the person is imprisoned

in connection with a conviction for a Federal, State,

or local crime unless the imprisonment is for a

period of less than 30 consecutive days.

(Emphasis added). Thus, we must determine whether a person

held in pretrial detention is "imprisoned" "in connection with

a conviction," within the meaning of § 3624(e).

When interpreting a statute, we first consider the plain

meaning of the statutory language. United States v. Abdelshafi, 592 F.3d 602, 607 (4th Cir. 2010). In examining a statute’s plain meaning, we consider all the words employed and

do not review isolated phrases. United States v. Mitchell, 518

F.3d 230, 233-34 (4th Cir. 2008). Our analysis of particular

statutory language also is informed by "the specific context in

which that language is used, and the broader context of the

statute as a whole." Yi v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 412 F.3d

526, 530 (4th Cir. 2005) (quoting Robinson v. Shell Oil Co.,

519 U.S. 337, 341 (1997)).

The precise issue before us already has been considered by

four of our sister circuits, namely, the Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, and

Eleventh Circuits. The Ninth Circuit addressed this issue first

in United States v. Morales-Alejo, 193 F.3d 1102 (9th Cir.

1999), and held that a defendant’s pretrial detention does not

toll his period of supervised release. The court concluded that

the plain language of the term "imprisoned in connection with

a conviction" in § 3624(e) requires "an imprisonment resulting from or otherwise triggered by a criminal conviction." Id.

at 1105. According to the Ninth Circuit, pretrial detention is

incompatible with this requirement "because a person in pretrial detention has not yet been convicted and might never be

convicted." Id.

UNITED STATES v. IDE 5
Each of the other three circuit courts that have addressed

this issue have disagreed with the Ninth Circuit’s conclusion.

The Sixth Circuit, in United States v. Goins, 516 F.3d 416

(6th Cir. 2008), held that pretrial detention on a charge for

which a defendant later is convicted tolls a term of supervised

release. The Sixth Circuit observed that "[i]f the Ninth Circuit

were correct that Congress uses ‘imprisonment’ only when it

wishes to refer to a confinement that is the result of a penalty

or sentence, then the phrase ‘in connection with a conviction’

becomes entirely superfluous." Id. at 421. The Sixth Circuit

further reasoned that the plain language of the phrase "imprisoned in connection with a conviction" includes persons whose

pretrial detentions later are connected to a conviction. Id. at

422. According to the Sixth Circuit, the statutory phrase at

issue "eschews any temporal limitations." Id.

The Fifth Circuit confronted this issue in United States v.

Molina-Gazca, 571 F.3d 470 (5th Cir. 2009). Examining the

Sixth and Ninth Circuits’ respective holdings in Goins and

Morales-Alejo, the Fifth Circuit held that the Sixth Circuit’s

approach was preferable because the holding in Goins used a

"plain meaning interpretation of § 3624(e) [that] gives effect

to all of its terms." Id. at 474. Soon thereafter, the Eleventh

Circuit agreed with the Fifth and Sixth Circuits, and concluded that pretrial detention on a charge for which a defendant later is convicted falls within the meaning of the term

"imprisoned" in § 3624(e). United States v. Johnson, 581 F.3d

1310, 1311-12 (11th Cir. 2009). The Eleventh Circuit therefore held that a defendant’s period of supervised release is

tolled during such a pretrial detention. Id.

After reviewing the parties’ arguments and the cases discussed above, we agree with the decisions of the Fifth, Sixth,

and Eleventh Circuits and hold that a defendant’s term of

supervised release is tolled while the defendant is held in pretrial detention on charges for which he is later convicted.1

 We

reach this result for several reasons.

1Our holding is limited to situations, as in the present case, in which the

period of incarceration that the defendant spends in pretrial detention later

6 UNITED STATES v. IDE
We conclude, like the majority of our sister circuits resolving this issue, that § 3624(e) is unambiguous and plainly provides for tolling the term of supervised release under the

circumstances presented here. In conjunction with our reading

of the entire language of this statute, two key phrases in

§ 3624(e) mandate our conclusion.

We observe that Congress included the phrase "during any

period" in the same sentence as the phrase "imprisoned in

connection with a conviction." The phrase "during any

period" necessarily includes all time periods, both before and

after a conviction, for which an imprisonment is connected

with that conviction. In contrast, acceptance of Ide’s argument

effectively would nullify the word "any," which is a result we

will not reach. See Sayyed v. Wolpoff & Abramson, 485 F.3d

226, 231 (4th Cir. 2007). Similarly, we decline Ide’s invitation to read the word "following" into the statute, as it is not

this Court’s province to redraft legislation.

We agree with the Sixth Circuit’s reasoning that the phrase

"in connection with a conviction" necessarily includes a

period of pretrial detention for which a defendant receives

credit against the sentence he ultimately receives. Goins, 516

F.3d at 422. A contrary conclusion would render the phrase

"in connection with" superfluous, a result that we will avoid

whenever possible.2See United States v. Talebnejad, 460 F.3d

563, 568 (4th Cir. 2006).

is credited toward the prison sentence that he receives following his conviction. We express no view regarding whether the supervised release

term may be tolled in instances in which the defendant does not receive

credit for time spent in pretrial detention. 

2Although Ide also argues that the possibility of a defendant’s conviction in a jurisdiction outside the United States would allow the phrase "in

connection with a conviction for a Federal, State, or local crime" to have

the meaning that he advocates, we reject this argument because we find

no indication in the statute that Congress was concerned with foreign convictions. 

UNITED STATES v. IDE 7
While § 3624(e) does not define the word "imprisoned," we

note that Congress, in a separate statute, has used this identical word in a context that includes pretrial detention. In 18

U.S.C. § 3041, the general arrest statute, Congress provided

that "the offender may . . . be arrested and imprisoned or

released . . . for trial." In that statute, therefore, Congress

plainly used the word "imprisoned" to refer to detention that

occurs before a trial. Thus, Ide’s contention that the word

"imprisoned" can only refer to confinement following a conviction is incorrect. Accordingly, we agree with the district

court’s interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e).

III.

We hold that Ide’s term of supervised release was tolled

during the period that he spent in pretrial detention awaiting

trial on the West Virginia charge for which he later was convicted. Thus, the district court correctly determined that the

government’s petition to revoke Ide’s term of supervised

release was timely filed. 

For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s judgment.3

AFFIRMED

3Because we conclude that the language of § 3624(e) is plain, we need

not address the various public policy arguments that each side advances

in support of their respective interpretations of the statute. 

8 UNITED STATES v. IDE