Source: https://m.openjurist.org/947/f2d/1461
Timestamp: 2020-07-06 00:31:56
Document Index: 214333992

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 7', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3563', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3565', '§ 3583', '§ 7', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 7', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 1006', '§ 7', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 7']

947 F. 2d 1461 - United States v. Boling
947 F2d 1461 United States v. Boling
947 F.2d 1461
Timothy Scott BOLING, Defendant-Appellant.
137 Cong.Rec. S10021 (daily ed. July 15, 1991). Regarding this amendment, Senator Thurmond stated, "These proposals were suggested to me by the U.S. Sentencing Commission with the desire that they might be promptly enacted so that the supervised release component of sentences will function as Congress intended. " 137 Cong.Rec. S8892 (daily ed. June 27, 1991) (emphasis added). The senator continued by declaring the legislation "would clarify that Federal courts retain the flexibility to order an additional period of supervised release following the imposition of a term of imprisonment for a violation of a condition of supervised release." Id. (emphasis added). Although we must apply and construe the law as enacted and not as Congress might in the future amend it, we accept Senator Thurmond's amendment as indeed mere clarification of the original intent of § 3583(e).1
In our view, the proper reading of the statutory limitation of 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3 ), is that the maximum prison term a court may impose when revoking supervised release is one equal to "the term of supervised release," id., originally imposed, without credit for time previously served under postrelease supervision. We also believe that the proper reading of 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2 ) permits the court dealing with a violation of a supervised release term to extend a term of supervised release to the maximum term allowable for the original offense. Read properly, we believe § 3583(e) evinces Congress' intent to confer upon courts broad powers and flexibility in administering and overseeing terms of supervised release. Despite the word "or," which the dissent finds so limiting, we believe § 3583(e) permits a court when revoking a term of supervised release to impose further imprisonment and to reimpose supervised release following imprisonment. The combined term of imprisonment plus reimposed supervised release is limited to the maximum term of supervised release authorized by statute for the original offense. U.S.S.G. § 7B1.3(g)(2), therefore, is a proper application of the statute.
We believe the word "or" should not be read unnecessarily to limit a court's flexibility in administering supervised release. The dissent's reading, for example, would deny a court the option of ordering a "person to remain at his place of residence during nonworking hours" under § 3583(e)(4) and at the same time extending a term of supervised release or otherwise modifying its conditions under § 3583(e)(2). It seems to us unreasonable to say that a court, once exercising its authority under one option of § 3583(e), could never again return to § 3583(e) to exercise its authority under another subsection. We believe that Congress intended that a court have authority to choose one § 3583(e) option, and a month later, a day later, or at the same instant, choose another § 3583(e) option. We recognize the strong presumption against a conjunctive interpretation of "or" in a criminal statute, see United States v. O'Driscoll, 761 F.2d 589, 597-98 (10th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1020, 106 S.Ct. 1207, 89 L.Ed.2d 320 (1986). But the situation before us is not substantially different from that in 18 U.S.C. § 3563(b), which surely is a classic example of the conjunctive use of "or."
This is a matter of first impression in this circuit. To date, only the Ninth Circuit has spoken directly to this question. See United States v. Behnezhad, 907 F.2d 896 (9th Cir.1990).1 Behnezhad held that under § 3583, "a district court is not permitted to revoke a person's supervised release, order a term of incarceration and then order another term of supervised release." Id. at 898 (footnote omitted) (emphasis in original). Thus, under the statute's construction in Behnezhad, the district court erred when sentencing defendant Boling to a new term of supervised release. I am convinced that we should follow the well-reasoned construction of the statute by the Ninth Circuit.
Id., 815 F.2d 1343, 1348 (10th Cir.1987) (quotation marks and citation omitted). Despite this sound principle of giving meaning to "every word," there is no consideration given in the majority opinion to the small, but critically important word "or" which Congress placed between subparagraphs (3) and (4) of § 3583(e).2 To me, the "or" is of paramount importance and it was the insertion of the disjunctive "or" which led the Behnezhad court to conclude that a district court is not empowered to revoke supervised release for a violation of conditions and order imprisonment, and then also impose supervised release thereafter.
That the majority opinion's interpretation of § 3583 reads the disjunctive "or" out of the statute is made clear by its analysis relying first on the authority conferred by § 3583(e)(3), and then on that given by § 3583(e)(2), and concluding from their joinder that § 3583(e) permits a "combined term of imprisonment plus reimposed supervised release[.]" Majority op. at 1463 (emphasis added). Although the majority purports to "recognize the strong presumption against a conjunctive interpretation of 'or' in a criminal statute," its analysis neither explains why this presumption does not apply here nor does it indicate where, if ever, the presumption would apply. Id. at 1463 (emphasis added). Thus, instead of observing the plain meaning of the disjunctive "or," that meaning is ignored and the statute is rewritten by the majority to allow sentencing by piecing together power from different subparagraphs that were obviously written by Congress as alternatives.
Relying on the rule of statutory construction applied in this court's opinion in United States v. O'Driscoll, 761 F.2d 589, 598 (10th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1020, 106 S.Ct. 1207, 89 L.Ed.2d 320 (1986), the Behnezhad court concluded that the subparagraphs represented independent, alternative sentencing choices available to the court when the conditions of supervised release have been violated. In O'Driscoll, we recognized the "[f]undamental rule[ ] of statutory construction" that:
[w]hen the term "or" is used, it is used in the disjunctive sense unless the legislative intent is clearly contrary.... And in penal statutes the word "or" is seldom used other than as a disjunctive and can never be interpreted as meaning the conjunctive 'and' if the effect would be to increase the punishment; the word "or" indicates permissible alternative sentences.
Id. at 597-98 (citations omitted) (emphasis altered). Following this rule, the Behnezhad court concluded it must "strictly interpret 'or' as disjunctive because to do otherwise would generally have the effect of increasing a person's punishment." Id. (citing O'Driscoll, 761 F.2d at 598).
In the instant case, as in Knutzen and Behnezhad, "[w]e therefore cannot ignore the use of the 'or' " in the statute we here construe, § 3583(e). Knutzen, 815 F.2d at 1348. Furthermore, as noted in Behnezhad, "there is nothing [in the legislative history of § 3583] that would suggest that we should give the word 'or' anything but its natural meaning." Id., 907 F.2d at 898-99. And I would also agree with the Ninth Circuit that because Congress knew how to expressly give a court the flexibility to reimpose conditional release when § 3583 was enacted, as shown by its treatment of parole violations, we should not assume it did so sub silentio here. See Behnezhad at 899 (examining 18 U.S.C. § 3565).3
I find no justification to reject the sound reasoning of Behnezhad and the rule of construction recognized in our O'Driscoll opinion. The majority relies, first, upon statements by one member of Congress addressing S.1241 (a pending bill which seeks to rectify perceived deficiencies in § 3583), and to a lesser degree, upon the policy statement contained in § 7B1.3(g)(2) of the Sentencing Guidelines. See majority op. at 1461-63. Neither supports ignoring the plain words of § 3583, or abandoning the settled rules of statutory construction.
As to the former, the Supreme Court has recently noted that "it is questionable whether [such views] ... even amount to subsequent legislative history--itself an unreliable guide to legislative intent." Chapman v. United States, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 1919, 1927 n. 4, 114 L.Ed.2d 524 (1991) (citing Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 566-67, 108 S.Ct. 2541, 2550-51, 101 L.Ed.2d 490 (1988) and Quern v. Mandley, 436 U.S. 725, 736 n. 10, 98 S.Ct. 2068, 2075 n. 10, 56 L.Ed.2d 658 (1978)). And even with the overlap of committee membership and some sponsorship related to § 3583 and S.1241, see majority op. at 1464 n. 1, I believe it is improper to accord such statements weight as legislative history in order to read the word "or" out of the statute.4 Indeed, to my mind, the majority's use of a proposed amendment to § 3583 to justify adding a new component to defendant Boling's sentence raises ex post facto concerns that we should not ignore. See generally, Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 28-31, 101 S.Ct. 960, 963-966, 67 L.Ed.2d 17 (1981) (noting that "[t]he ex post facto prohibition ... forbids the imposition of punishment more severe than the punishment assigned by law when the act to be punished occurred").5
The majority's recourse to § 7B1.3(g)(2) is not persuasive. This nonbinding "policy statement," by itself, does not allow us to ignore the disjunctive structure of § 3583(e). Although the Sentencing Commission's Commentary to this policy statement contends that § 3583 "neither expressly authorizes nor precludes a court from ordering that a term of supervised release recommence after revocation[,]" id., application note 2, the Commission qualifies its declaration that supervised release can be recommenced with the phrase "to the extent permitted by law[.]"6 Id. Significantly, the Commission implicitly concedes that its interpretation of § 3583 is contingent upon further action by Congress, noting that in the wake of Behnezhad, it "has transmitted to the Congress a proposal for a statutory amendment to address this issue." Id., application note 3 (emphasis added).
Senator Thurmond sponsored the new amendment to § 3583 with Senators Kennedy and Biden as cosponsors. 137 Cong.Rec. S8892 (daily ed. June 27, 1991). Importantly, Senator Kennedy was the primary sponsor of the original Sentencing Reform Act which included § 3583, with Senators Thurmond and Biden among the cosponsors of the Act. See S.Rep. No. 225, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 37 n. 3, reprinted in 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 3182, 3220 n. 3. Thus, these senators' views as to the intent and meaning of § 3583(e) would seem to have special significance. These three senators were also senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986 when § 3583(e) was amended adding what is now § 3583(e)(3). See Pub.L. No. 99-570, § 1006, 100 Stat. 3207, 3207-6 to 3207-7 (1986); 1986 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News XCV (listing members of the Judiciary Committee)
Mr. Boling contends that the court's reliance on U.S.S.G. § 7B1.3(g)(2) to revoke supervised release, impose a sentence of incarceration, and then impose an additional term of supervised release is reversible error of law as provided by 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). United States v. Behnezhad, 907 F.2d 896 (9th Cir.1990).
The majority's belief that Congress by way of § 3583(e) has granted federal courts "broad powers and flexibility in administering and overseeing terms of supervised release[,]" majority at 1463, is directly at odds with this court's most recent views of § 3583. See, e.g., United States v. Padilla, 947 F.2d 893, 894 (10th Cir.1991) (noting that federal court sentencing power for supervised release "is constrained by 18 U.S.C. 3583"); United States v. Esparsen, 930 F.2d 1461, 1476-77 (10th Cir.1991) (same). Rather than liberalizing federal court sentencing power, Congress has directed that because Boling breached the conditions of his release by possessing cocaine, his term of supervised release shall be terminated and he must be imprisoned for "not less than one-third of the term of supervised release." See § 3583(g)
Indeed, an examination of the text of the proposed bill undermines the majority's view that S. 1241 would only "clarify" what already exists in § 3583. As presently worded in the senate bill, the "or" between the subparagraphs in paragraph (e) is retained--implicitly rejecting the majority's view that Congress intended that these provisions be "combined [.]" Majority op. at 1463. Rather, S. 1241 adds a completely new section (h), entitled "Supervised Release Following Revocation," which standing alone, would permit courts to reimpose supervised release following imprisonment for breach of an earlier release. To date, section (h) has not been enacted. Thus, the proper role of the judiciary should not be a race with Congress to amend a federal statute
To me it is unpersuasive to use the statement by one senator concerning an amendment to § 3583 which has only passed the Senate but has not been adopted by the Congress to date
In fact, the Commission's view on reimposing supervised release stated in § 7B1.3 appears inconsistent with its declaration that upon finding a violation of release conditions, the court "may continue the defendant on supervised release ..., or revoke supervised release and impose a term of imprisonment." U.S.S.G. ch. 7, Pt. A(b) (1990) (emphasis added)