PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 16-3268

___________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

VAUGHN JOHNSON, a/k/a Andrew Smith,

a/k/a Glenroy King

Vaughn Johnson,

 Appellant

____________________________________

On Appeal from the District Court of the Virgin Islands

(D.V.I. No. 1:11-cr-00021-001)

District Judge: Honorable Wilma A. Lewis

____________________________________

Argued on May 4, 2017

Before: GREENAWAY, JR., SHWARTZ, and FUENTES, 

Circuit Judges.

(Opinion filed: June 30, 2017)
2

Omodare B. Jupiter [Argued]

Office of Federal Public Defender

1115 Strand Street, Second Floor

Christiansted, VI 00820

 Counsel for Appellant

Alphonso G. Andrews, Jr. 

Office of United States Attorney

1108 King Street, Suite 201

Christiansted, VI 00820

David W. White [Argued]

Office of United States Attorney

5500 Veterans Drive, Suite 260

United States Courthouse

St. Thomas, VI 00802

 Counsel for Appellee

_________

OPINION OF THE COURT

_________

FUENTES, Circuit Judge.

Appellant Vaughn Johnson challenges a judgment

revoking his term of supervised release and resentencing him 

to 18 months in prison (with credit for time served). He 

contends, among other things, that the District Court of the 

Virgin Islands lacked jurisdiction over the term of supervised 

release, because 1) he was subject to a previous revocation 

order, entered by a different district court, on an unrelated

concurrent supervised release term; and 2) the Virgin Islands 

Probation Office failed to actually supervise him or attempt to 
3

do so. As we find that the District Court was not deprived of 

jurisdiction, we will affirm. 

I.

In the early 2010s, Johnson was twice convicted of 

federal crimes. The first conviction, in the Middle District of 

Florida, arose from a charge of lying on a passport 

application. The second, in the District of the Virgin Islands, 

arose from wire fraud charges. In both instances, Johnson

received a custodial sentence followed by three years of 

supervised release, the conditions of which would be violated

if he committed another crime.1 Because Johnson was 

already imprisoned on the first charge when he was indicted, 

convicted, and sentenced on the second, he effectively served 

one aggregate prison term in connection with both 

convictions.

After Johnson was released from prison in January 

2014, he settled in the Middle District of Florida, and the 

Middle District’s Probation Office took charge of his 

supervision. Aside from a brief status phone call in June 

2014 that he initiated, Johnson had no contact with the Virgin 

Islands Probation Office, which otherwise took no action to 

supervise or keep tabs on him.

In January 2015, Johnson was again indicted in Florida 

federal court for lying on a passport application—a charge to 

 

1 See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d) (“The court shall order, as an 

explicit condition of supervised release, that the defendant not 

commit another Federal, State, or local crime during the term 

of supervision . . . .”).
4

which he would eventually plead guilty, but which also 

violated the no-new-crime condition of his supervised release

terms. As a result, the Middle District of Florida began 

taking steps to revoke the Florida term of supervised release

by issuing an order of detention. Johnson eventually admitted 

the Middle District revocation charge and, in April 2016, the 

district court entered a judgment of revocation sentencing him

to time served.

Although the new Florida federal indictment had been 

handed down in January 2015, the Virgin Islands Probation 

Office took no action until March 2016, when it was belatedly 

informed by its Middle District of Florida counterpart of 

Johnson’s new indictment and, by extension, of his violation 

of the conditions of the Virgin Islands term of supervised 

release. After inquiring into whether the Middle District of 

Florida Probation Office would accept a formal transfer of 

jurisdiction (Florida declined), the Virgin Islands Probation 

Office notified the Virgin Islands District Court of Johnson’s 

violation. The Court then began the formal process of 

revoking Johnson’s Virgin Islands term of supervised release. 

This time, however, Johnson decided to challenge the 

revocation proceedings. He did so partly on jurisdictional 

grounds, arguing that the Florida district court’s judgment of 

revocation had eliminated the Virgin Islands term of 

supervised release, leaving nothing left to supervise or 

revoke. He claimed also that the Virgin Islands Probation 

Office’s abdication of its supervisory responsibility—as 

demonstrated by its failure to supervise or attempt to 

supervise between his release from prison and March 2016—

otherwise deprived the District Court of jurisdiction. 
5

After conducting a revocation hearing,2the District 

Court overruled Johnson’s challenges, denied his oral motion 

to dismiss, revoked his supervised release, and sentenced him 

to 18 months in prison (with credit for time served) and 18 

additional months of supervised release. Johnson appealed.

II.3

a) Jurisdictional Arguments

1) Merger of Concurrent Terms of Supervised 

Release

Johnson’s first argument is that the two concurrent 

 

2 See Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1(b)(2). 

3 We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 to determine, 

among other things, whether the District Court properly 

exercised its own jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. §§ 3241 and 

3583(e). Johnson has been released from prison, but as the 

separate term of supervised release contained in the 

revocation judgment is not “over, and can[] be undone” if he 

prevails, this appeal is not moot. Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 

1, 8 (1998). Our review of questions of law, jurisdictional or 

otherwise, is plenary. See United States v. Merlino, 785 F.3d 

79, 82 (3d Cir. 2015) (noting that, in a supervised release 

appeal, “review of jurisdictional issues is plenary”); United 

States v. Maloney, 513 F.3d 350, 354 (3d Cir. 2008); see also

United States v. Juarez, 601 F.3d 885, 888 (9th Cir. 2010)

(per curiam) (“We review de novo whether the district court 

had jurisdiction to revoke a term of supervised release.”).
6

terms of supervised release, from Florida and the Virgin 

Islands, were effectively terminated by the Middle District of 

Florida’s single revocation judgment. He relies in part on 18 

U.S.C. § 3624(e), the subsection of the “Release of a 

prisoner” statute pertaining to “Supervision After Release.”

Johnson points out that from a logical standpoint, a single

Probation Office operating out of a single judicial district will 

have the actual duty of supervision, as a person will not 

generally reside in two separate districts at the same time. 

Johnson therefore argues that “where multiple terms of 

supervised release run concurrently, revocation of one such 

term necessarily terminates the concurrent terms . . . because 

Congress effectively determined that an offender should serve 

only one term of post-release supervision.”

4

 In effect, 

Johnson proposes a de facto merger of concurrent supervised 

release terms, combining the practical reality of single-district 

supervision with the legal consequences of committing a 

violation. A single revocation judgment would, in this model,

wipe out all concurrent supervised release terms then 

pending.

As Johnson seems to concede, however, the two 

Courts of Appeals that have addressed an analogous argument

in their published decisions—the Second and Fifth Circuits, 

in United States v. Gammarano and United States v. 

Alvarado—have rejected it.5 Johnson did not explain either 

 

4 Appellant’s Br. at 11. 

5 See United States v. Gammarano, 321 F.3d 311, 314 (2d 

Cir. 2003) (“Nothing in the text of § 3624(e), or any other 

statute, indicates that the revocation of one term of supervised 

release necessarily terminates another term of supervision 

simply because it runs concurrently with the term being 
7

in his brief or at oral argument why he thinks these cases

were wrongly decided. Our own case law, moreover, rejects

his argument by implication. In United States v. Dees, we 

joined six other circuits in permitting consecutive prison 

terms to be imposed when concurrent terms of supervised 

release are revoked, even if the revocations are all based on 

the same underlying violation conduct6—an outcome that 

depends on the viability of multiple, independent terms of 

supervised release. 

Nevertheless, we begin with the language of the statute 

upon which Johnson bases his argument, § 3624(e), which 

addresses the mechanics of supervised release terms—setting 

out when they begin, when they are tolled, and how 

supervision is transferred between the Bureau of Prisons (a 

part of the Department of Justice) and the Probation Office (a 

part of the federal court system). Section 3624(e) says a term 

 

revoked . . . . Accordingly, we hold that revocation of a term 

of supervised release for one conviction does not terminate 

supervised release imposed as a result of a separate 

conviction.”); United States v. Alvarado, 201 F.3d 379, 381–

82 (5th Cir. 2000) (holding that the revocation of one term of 

supervised release did not “automatically terminate” another); 

see also United States v. Mittelstadt, 88 F. App’x 128, 129–

30 (7th Cir. 2004) (nonprecedential per curiam order) (“We 

see no reason why the district court could not have revoked 

one term of supervised release but not the other . . . .”); 

McGaughey v. United States, 596 F.2d 796, 797–98 (8th Cir. 

1979) (per curiam) (reaching a similar outcome in the context 

of 28 U.S.C. § 2255 and via summary affirmance). 

6 467 F.3d 847, 851–52 (3d Cir. 2006). 
8

of supervised release “commences on the day the person is 

released from imprisonment,” which is when a prisoner is 

“released by the Bureau of Prisons to the supervision of a 

probation officer who shall, during the term imposed, 

supervise the person released to the degree warranted by the 

conditions specified by the sentencing court.” The term of 

supervised release then “runs concurrently with any Federal, 

State, or local 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.” 

In our view, nothing in the language of § 3624(e) 

supports Johnson’s claim that Congress “effectively 

determined” that a prisoner would be subject to only a single 

de facto, amalgam term of supervised release. To the 

contrary, the statute specifically acknowledges that a 

supervised release term is to be concurrent with other federal 

and state probationary or parole periods, including another 

federal term of supervised release; or, as we said in Dees, 

“[§] 3624(e) mandates that multiple terms of supervised 

release run concurrently.”

7

 Section 3624(e) does use the 

singular throughout—“the term,” not “the terms,” overseen 

by “a” probation officer—but we think this is because it is 

written to address individual terms of supervised release, in 

line with other parts of the statutory framework.8 We do not 

read that drafting choice, or the statute more broadly, to 

bolster Johnson’s merger argument. 

 

7

Id. at 851. 

8 See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e) (setting forth how a court may 

terminate, extend, or revoke “a term” of supervised release). 
9

We gain further support for our decision by reference 

to the relevant federal probation statute. In the federal 

system, probation differs from supervised release in that it is 

imposed as an alternative to prison rather than in addition to 

prison.9 Otherwise, federal probation is governed by the 

same basic mechanics as supervised release and is subject to 

the same logistical realities regarding multiple terms of 

supervision that Johnson has identified.10 The analogous 

probation statute is § 3564, which is entitled “Running of a 

term of probation.” Its subsection (b) specifically 

acknowledges “[m]ultiple terms of probation,” which 

“whether imposed at the same time or at different times” are 

to “run concurrently with each other.” Thus, far from 

demonstrating a congressional intent to bring about a merger 

of probation terms, § 3564(b) indicates the opposite. It is 

therefore unlikely that probation and supervised release were 

intended to function differently from each other on such a 

basic level. 

More broadly, in cases such as this one where multiple 

terms of supervised release arise out of judgments entered in 

different judicial districts, Johnson’s merger argument would 

 

9 See United States v. Weikert, 504 F.3d 1, 7 n.4 (1st Cir. 

2007); United States v. Copley, 978 F.2d 829, 831 n.* (4th 

Cir. 1992) (“Supervised release and probation differ only in 

that the former follows a prison term and the latter is in lieu 

of a prison term.”).

10 See United States v. Kissinger, 309 F.3d 179, 181 (3d Cir. 

2002) (discussing similarities between probation and 

supervised release); see also Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1 

(“Revoking or Modifying Probation or Supervised Release.”). 
10

violate the general modern rule that a court lacks jurisdiction 

to modify a criminal judgment from another district.

11 And as 

§ 3583(a) establishes, supervised release is as much a “part of 

the sentence” as a term of imprisonment or a fine. We see no 

reason, and Johnson does not advance any, to treat the power

to modify or revoke a term of supervised release any 

differently than we would the power to modify any other 

aspects of a criminal judgment. This is especially so in light 

of 1) the inclusion in the statutory framework of an explicit 

mechanism for transferring supervised release jurisdiction 

among judicial districts, and which allows the transferee 

district to step into the shoes of the original sentencing 

court12; and 2) the plentiful jurisdictional language in Fed. R. 

Crim. P. 32.1, such as its distinction between “Appearance in 

the District With Jurisdiction” and the same in “a District 

Lacking Jurisdiction.”13 Were Johnson correct, this clear 

jurisdictional language would be rendered superfluous when, 

as here, a person was subject to more than one term of 

 

11 For instance, federal law generally directs that filings 

attacking the validity or length of a conviction or sentence be 

made in the sentencing court. See, e.g., In re Nwanze, 242 

F.3d 521, 525 (3d Cir. 2001) (“[O]rdinarily a petitioner 

should present [an attack on a conviction] to the sentencing 

court rather than the court in the district in which he is 

confined.”).

12 See 18 U.S.C. § 3605; cf. United States v. Adams, 723 F.3d 

687, 689 (6th Cir. 2013) (holding that “§ 3605 authorizes a 

transferee court to revoke a term of a defendant’s supervised 

release for violations committed prior to the transfer of 

jurisdiction”).

13 Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1(a)(4), (5). 
11

supervised release from more than one judicial district.

For the above reasons, we join the Second and Fifth 

Circuits in rejecting the model of merged terms of supervised 

release.

14

 As a result, we conclude that the Virgin Islands 

term of supervised release was not constructively discharged 

by the Middle District of Florida’s separate judgment of 

revocation. In fact, even if the Middle District of Florida had

intended to act on Johnson’s Virgin Islands term of 

supervised release—and there is no indication that it did—the 

court would have been without jurisdiction to do so, absent a 

formal § 3605 transfer of jurisdiction from the Virgin Islands. 

2) Failure to Actually Supervise

Johnson’s second jurisdictional argument also relies on 

§ 3624(e). Pointing to the mandatory language of the 

statute—a Probation Officer “shall . . . supervise the person 

released”—he alleges that the Virgin Islands District Court 

lacked jurisdiction because its Probation Office “failed to 

supervise or even attempt to supervise [him],” thereby 

 

14 We are otherwise unconvinced by Johnson’s rule-of-lenity 

and reliance arguments. The statutes are not ambiguous, see 

United States v. Salahuddin, 765 F.3d 329, 340 (3d Cir. 

2014), and Johnson does not explain how his “assumption”

that his supervision was transferred to Florida has any legal 

significance. To the extent that Johnson intends to argue that 

his incorrect assumption led him to take a legal stance in the 

Florida revocation that would have prejudiced him on res 

judicata grounds, we do not assign such an argument any 

jurisdictional significance. 
12

abdicating its statutory responsibility to do so.15 

At the outset, we do not agree with Johnson that 

§ 3624(e) conditions jurisdiction to revoke on actual 

supervision by a particular Probation Office. Otherwise, a 

court would be deprived of jurisdiction if a person committed 

a violation after being released from prison but before 

reporting, or while AWOL, or while traveling within another 

judicial district. 

Johnson suggests that the relevant distinction is 

between action and inaction, but we are not so sure; § 3624(e)

does not otherwise speak in clear jurisdictional language16

and says nothing about “attempts” to supervise. And while 

Probation Officers play an essential role in supervision, they 

are not the ultimate decision-makers in the context of 

supervised release. Rather, the judgment is overseen by the 

district court itself.

17 We will not cut short the district court’s 

jurisdiction upon the Probation Office’s failure to fulfill its 

statutory responsibilities. 

Further, based on the logistical hurdles to actual multidistrict supervision previously mentioned, the Virgin Islands 

Probation Office would have been functionally unable to 

 

15 Appellant’s Br. at 15. 

16 See Grp. Against Smog & Pollution, Inc. v. Shenango Inc., 

810 F.3d 116, 122 (3d Cir. 2016) (explaining the presumption 

against interpreting statutory language as jurisdictional). 

17 Cf. United States v. Hollins, 847 F.3d 535, 541 (7th Cir. 

2017) (addressing the authority of Probation Officers to 

render advice for the ultimate review of the district court).
13

supervise Johnson so long as he remained in Florida. As the 

District Court observed during the revocation hearing, even if 

the Virgin Islands Probation Office had “attempted” to 

supervise Johnson, or had engaged in a semiformal “courtesy 

supervision”18 arrangement with the Middle District of 

 

18 Johnson argues, in part, that “courtesy supervision”—an 

informal arrangement between Probation Offices that does 

not transfer jurisdiction, but instead uses the supervising 

office as the “eyes and ears” of another—is not authorized by 

law. See Appellant’s Br. at 12. According to the Guide to 

Judiciary Policy, however, courtesy supervision finds its 

statutory basis in 18 U.S.C. § 3603(4), which instructs 

probation officers to “be responsible for the supervision of 

any probationer or a person on supervised release who is 

known to be within the judicial district.” See 8E Guide to 

Judiciary Policy § 375.10 (Apr. 17, 2014) (setting forth 

statutory bases for short-term courtesy supervision and 

longer-term “transfer of supervision” without transfer of 

jurisdiction). While we need not determine whether courtesy 

supervision for longer durations comports with the “brief 

period[s] of time” set forth in the Guide, see id., we do note 

that courtesy supervision exposes another flaw in Johnson’s 

jurisdictional argument. If Johnson were instead serving a 

Florida state term of supervised release or probation, a formal 

transfer of jurisdiction to Florida would have been 

impossible, as § 3605 authorizes transfer between federal 

district courts only. As a result, if Johnson were correct about 

the jurisdictional nature of actual or attempted supervision, a 

federal term of probation or supervised release could become 

a nullity whenever a state probationary term was actually 

being served. 
14

Florida, the result would have been the same: actual 

supervision by the Middle District of Florida.19 

Accordingly, we reject this jurisdictional challenge.20

b) Violation of Due Process

In his final (and only non-jurisdictional) argument, 

Johnson contends that the District Court erred by relying on

two documents the Court had independently obtained from 

the Middle District of Florida Probation Office. In so doing, 

Johnson asserts, the District Court denied his Due Process 

right to a neutral and detached arbiter by assuming the role of 

an advocate for the government.

 

19 On that point, we note that the Judicial Conference has long 

encouraged district courts to transfer undischarged supervised 

release terms to the actual district of supervision, voting in 

1988 to “encourage courts mutually to consent to such 

transfers as provided by 18 U.S.C. [§] 3605.” Report of the 

Proceedings of the Judicial Conference of the United States 

13 (Mar. 15, 1988). The Guide to Judiciary Policy also 

continues to recognize the advantages of “simultaneous 

transfer of jurisdiction in all instances when an offender is 

being supervised in another district.” 8E Guide to Judiciary 

Policy § 375(c).

20 Contrary to what Johnson suggests, our holding does not 

read out of the statute the mandatory responsibilities of the 

Probation Office. Rather, it simply recognizes the distinction 

between “mandatory” and “jurisdictional.” See, e.g., 

Henderson v. Shinseki, 562 U.S. 428, 435 (2011).
15

This claim fails under any standard of review.21 

Although the documents in question are not part of the record 

on appeal, the hearing transcript indicates that they consisted 

of two letters acquired from the Middle District of Florida 

Probation Office specifying the date of Johnson’s release 

from prison and explaining why he was briefly released in 

Kentucky, topics that had earlier been addressed by the 

Probation Officer’s testimony. To the extent that the Court’s 

reliance on them violated the “minimal” due process 

protections that apply in revocation proceedings,22 Johnson 

fails to show, or even argue, that this violation led to any 

prejudice. We do not perceive any on independent review; 

the documents were, at most, relevant to the start date of 

Johnson’s term of supervised release and/or the fact of his 

actual supervision in Florida, neither of which appeared to be 

seriously in dispute (and neither of which is being litigated in 

this appeal). 

III.

As the District Court had jurisdiction to revoke 

Johnson’s term of supervised release, and did not violate his 

Due Process rights in the course of doing so, we will affirm 

its judgment. 

 

21 Johnson does not appear to have raised this as a Due 

Process argument below, but the government nevertheless 

urges plenary review, see Gov’t Br. at 16.

22 Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 485, 489 (1972); see 

also United States v. Maloney, 513 F.3d 350, 356 (3d Cir. 

2008) (explaining that Fed. R. Crim. P. 32.1 incorporates Due 

Process protections).