* District Judge of the Eastern District of Texas, sitting

by designation.

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

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No. 96-10697

_____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

TERRY LEE LYNCH,

Defendant-Appellant.

_________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Texas

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May 21, 1997

Before POLITZ, Chief Judge, and KING, Circuit Judge, and FOLSOM,*

District Judge.

KING, Circuit Judge:

This case presents the issue of when the term of supervised

release begins for a defendant whose offense was committed

between October 27, 1986, the effective date of the Anti-Drug

Abuse Act of 1986, and November 1, 1987, the effective date of

the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. Terry Lee Lynch is such a

defendant, and the district court determined that he was still

within his term of supervised release when he engaged in conduct

that violated the conditions of his supervised release. The

district court revoked Lynch’s supervised release and sentenced
 

1 Lynch was sentenced without eligibility for parole

because his case was governed by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986,

which replaced most forms of parole with a system of supervised

release. See Gozlon-Peretz v. United States, 498 U.S. 395

(1991).

2

him to nine months imprisonment. Lynch appeals, arguing that the

district court did not have jurisdiction to impose an additional

sentence because, under the appropriate standard for calculating

his supervised release term, his term had expired when he engaged

in the relevant conduct. We agree, and thus we reverse and

remand with instructions to vacate the district court’s order

revoking Lynch’s supervised release and to dismiss the revocation

petition with prejudice.

I. BACKGROUND

The facts of this case are undisputed. On or about May 21,

1987, Lynch committed the offense of knowingly distributing

cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). He was sentenced

on November 6, 1987, to five years of imprisonment without

eligibility for parole1 and four years of supervised release. At

this time, 18 U.S.C. §§ 4161-4164 (repealed) applied, authorizing

“good time” and providing for mandatory release upon the accrual

of sufficient good time credit to discharge the sentence. As a

result of accrued good time, Lynch was released from the

Volunteers of America halfway house on December 21, 1990, instead

of April 2, 1992, the date on which he was originally scheduled

to be released. 

Between December 21, 1990, and April 2, 1992, Lynch was

under the supervision of a probation officer on behalf of the
3

U.S. Parole Commission. The probation office calculated April 2,

1992, as the date Lynch’s supervised release began. Thus, the

probation office considered December 21, 1990, through April 2,

1992, as a period of mandatory release supervision or “regular”

parole and April 2, 1992, through April 2, 1996, as the period of

supervised release. 

On March 7, 1996, Lynch’s probation officer filed a petition

to revoke his supervised release. The petition alleged that

Lynch had violated the conditions of his release in January and

February 1996 by testing positive for drugs, failing to submit

urine samples, and leaving the residential treatment facility in

which he was placed. Lynch pleaded not true to the allegations. 

Lynch also challenged the district court’s jurisdiction to revoke

his supervised release on the basis that his term of supervised

release expired in 1994, four years after he was released from

custody. The government responded that his term of supervised

release did not end until April of 1996, four years after his

originally scheduled release date. The district court agreed

with the government, determined that the Lynch had violated the

terms of the supervised release, and sentenced Lynch to nine

months imprisonment. Lynch made a motion for new trial,

reasserting the jurisdiction argument, and the district court

denied the motion. Lynch has timely appealed.

II. DISCUSSION
4

We review the issue of the district court’s jurisdiction de

novo. In re United States Abatement Corp., 39 F.3d 563, 566 (5th

Cir. 1994). 

In 1984, in the Sentencing Reform Act (“SRA”), 18 U.S.C.

§§ 3551 et seq., Congress undertook a major reform of the federal

sentencing scheme, one of the goals of which was to replace most

forms of parole with a new system of supervised release. GozlonPeretz v. United States, 498 U.S. 395, 400 (1991). Congress

delayed the effective date of these supervised release provisions

until November 1, 1987, to ensure time for orderly

implementation. Id. at 397. However, on October 27, 1986,

Congress enacted the Anti-Drug Abuse Act (“ADAA”), which mandates

terms of supervised release for certain drug offenses. 21 U.S.C.

§ 841(b)(1)(C).

Thus, the ADAA mandated certain terms of supervised release

beginning on October 27, 1986, but the procedures for

administering supervised release found in the SRA did not become

effective until November 1, 1987. This one-year gap in the

effective dates of these statutes created a conflict of

interpretation among the courts of appeals as to whether the

ADAA’s supervised release provisions applied to offenses

committed during this window period. Gozlon-Peretz, 498 U.S. at

397. The Supreme Court resolved this issue in Gozlon-Peretz,

holding that “for offenses committed in the interim period

between October 27, 1986, and November 1, 1987, supervised
 

2 18 U.S.C. § 4164 (repealed): “A prisoner having served

his term or terms less good-time deductions shall, upon release,

be deemed as if released on parole until the expiration of the

maximum term or terms for which he was sentenced less one hundred

and eighty days.”

 

5

release applies for all drug offenses in the categories specified

by [the] ADAA.” Id. at 409. 

Gozlon-Peretz did not, however, resolve the question

presented by the case at bar: does the time period for

supervised release begin on the date the prisoner is released or

on the date the prisoner would have been released if the time

served had not been reduced? Lynch argues that according to the

plain language of the applicable portion of the SRA, “[t]he term

of supervised release commences on the day the person is released

from imprisonment.” 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e). The government argues

that during the time between Lynch’s release (December 21, 1990)

and the end of the actual five years to which he was sentenced

(April 2, 1992), Lynch was on “regular” parole.2 According to

the law prior to the SRA, “special” parole did not begin until

“regular” parole ended. The government contends that because

supervised release is merely a substitute for “special” parole,

supervised release does not begin until “regular” parole ends. 

Under this theory, Lynch’s supervised release did not begin until

April 2, 1992 (the date the actual five-year term expired), and

ran for four years; therefore, when Lynch committed the acts the

district court found violated the terms of his supervised

release, Lynch was still in supervised release status.
6

While the Fifth Circuit has not addressed this precise

issue, the Tenth Circuit recently did in United States v. Reider,

103 F.3d 99 (10th Cir. 1996). Reider involved a defendant whose

offense occurred during the window period, and the court was

faced with the exact issue we face in this case, “namely, the

time when supervised release begins.” Id. at 102. The

government made the same argument in Reider as it does here --

that the term of supervised release did not begin until the

actual time when the sentence was scheduled to expire, even

though the defendant was released early. Id. The court rejected

this argument: “The difficulty with the government’s position is

that it is inconsistent with the straightforward language of the

statute that requires supervised release to begin when the

‘person is released from imprisonment.’” Id. (quoting 18 U.S.C.

§ 3624(e)). The court noted that because application of the

statutory language in this case “is clear, direct[,] requires no

interpretation,” and does not bring about an absurd result, “we

are bound by the terms of the statute.” Id. at 103. Thus, the

defendant’s term of supervised release began when he was released

and expired before the relevant conduct occurred, meaning the

district court had no jurisdiction to punish that conduct on the

basis that it violated the terms of his supervised release. Id. 

We agree with the Tenth Circuit that the plain language of

the statute compels the result that the term of supervised

release begins upon the defendant’s release from imprisonment. 

We hold that for offenses committed during the window period
7

between October 27, 1986, and November 1, 1987, the term of

supervised release begins on the date the defendant is released

from imprisonment, not the date the sentence would have expired

without early release.

Applying that holding to this case, Lynch’s period of

supervised release began on December 21, 1990, when he was

released from Volunteers of America halfway house, and expired

four years later in 1994. When the conduct alleged in the

revocation petition occurred in 1996, Lynch was well past this

expiration date and thus was not in violation of his supervised

release. Therefore, the district court had no jurisdiction to

punish Lynch for this conduct on the basis that it violated the

terms of his supervised release.

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we REVERSE and REMAND WITH

INSTRUCTIONS to VACATE the order revoking Lynch’s supervised

release and to DISMISS the revocation petition with prejudice.