Source: http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/365/962/608973/
Timestamp: 2017-09-23 05:48:18
Document Index: 247298

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1029', '§ 1701', '§ 1029', '§ 3553', '§ 3553', '§ 3583', '§ 3553', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 3583', '§ 5', '§ 3583', '§ 3553', '§ 5', '§ 3583', '§ 5']

United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Jacob Okoko, A.k.a. Gbenga, Defendant-appellant, 365 F.3d 962 (11th Cir. 2004) :: Justia
Justia › US Law › Case Law › Federal Courts › Courts of Appeals › Eleventh Circuit › 2004 › United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Jacob Okoko, A.k.a. Gbenga, Defendant-appellant
United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Jacob Okoko, A.k.a. Gbenga, Defendant-appellant, 365 F.3d 962 (11th Cir. 2004)
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit - 365 F.3d 962 (11th Cir. 2004)
In 1997, Okoko was convicted under one count for conspiracy to commit access device fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1029(a) (1)-(3), (b) (2) and was sentenced to imprisonment for time served and three years' supervised release beginning on July 11, 1997 (the "1997 conviction").1 In its Probation Order, the court provided that (1) if Okoko should be deported, the term of supervised release would be tolled and (2) if Okoko should re-enter the United States, the term of supervised release would resume. Four months thereafter, Okoko was deported to Nigeria.
Over four years later in March 2002, Okoko was arrested in the United States for possession of a fraudulent credit card. He was convicted and sentenced in September 2002 for illegal reentry after deportation; theft of U.S. mail in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1701; and trafficking in and using one or more unauthorized access devices in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1029(a) (2) & (b) (2). As a result of these convictions, the probation officer charged Okoko with violating the terms of his supervised release in 1997.2 Okoko moved to dismiss asserting that his supervised release expired three years from the date of sentencing in 1997, specifically, on July 11, 2000. Thus, Okoko argued, the district court lacked jurisdiction. The district court disagreed and denied the motion, revoking his supervised release in May 2003. Because we find that the district court lacked the authority to toll Okoko's term of supervised release while he was out of the country and thus, lacked jurisdiction to revoke a probation period that had already expired, we reverse.
[a] term of supervised release does not run during any period in which the person is imprisoned in connection with a [nother] conviction for a Federal, State, or local crime unless the imprisonment is for a period of less than 30 consecutive days....
Furthermore, although Section 3583(d) (1) also permits the district court to impose "any other condition it considers to be appropriate," such an additional condition must reasonably relate to the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (1) and (a) (2) (B)-(D). The relevant factors to which conditions of supervised release must be related are:
18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). Additionally, a court may set a special condition if it (1) involves no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary for the purposes of imposing the sentence, and (2) if it is consistent with any pertinent policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d) (2)-(3).5
Accordingly, we find nothing in the language of the congressional scheme for supervised release that expressly permits the condition imposed by the district court here. To find that such a condition is authorized, we must find that the tolling of the release period during the time a defendant is out of the country reasonably relates to the factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) (1) and (a) (2) (B)-(D) in order to be considered as "any other condition" that the district court may impose. Because tolling in this context does not relate to any of these factors, we do not find that it qualifies as a condition that may be imposed. We agree with the Second, Fifth and Eighth Circuits, in holding that permission to impose "any other condition" during a supervised release under § 3583(d) does not include the tolling of the release upon deportation of an alien defendant. As reasoned by those Courts, the phrase "any other condition" must be read in the context of the statute as a whole and was not intended by Congress to provide "untrammeled discretion." See United States v. Juan-Manuel, 222 F.3d 480, 487 (8th Cir. 2000); United States v. Balogun, 146 F.3d 141, 146 (2d Cir. 1998); see also United States v. Quaye, 57 F.3d 447, 449 (5th Cir. 1995); United States v. Brown, 54 F.3d 234, 239 (5th Cir. 1995).6
Second, the specific authorization to surrender an alien defendant for deportation with the requirement that he or she remain outside of the United States as a condition of supervised release under § 3583(d) "logically precludes" the tolling of a release while the alien defendant is outside of the country. Juan-Manuel, 222 F.3d at 487. " [A] supervised release order cannot simultaneously be suspended and actively in effect." Id. In other words, "Congress could not have intended to allow a defendant to be excluded from the United States as a condition of supervised release while, at the same time, allow all conditions of supervised release to be suspended for the duration of that exclusion." Id. Third, as noted above, Congress has expressly provided for the tolling of a supervised release in two other sections of the Sentencing Reform Act,9 suggesting that it did not intend for tolling during a period of deportation to be imposed by the court as a condition of supervised release under § 3583(d). Juan-Manuel, 222 F.3d at 488. In none of the specific contexts wherein Congress has granted the court authority to toll a supervised release such as during reincarceration for another crime or because of the probationer's violation of the terms of his or her release, is deportation or exclusion from the United States included. Thus, "we decline to infer that the difference in treatment of the continuity of the supervised-release term with respect to reincarceration and deportation/exclusion was simply an oversight...." Balogun, 146 F.3d at 146.
Okoko admitted to violating the terms of his supervised release; therefore, the primary question on appeal is one of subject matter jurisdiction, a question of law that we review de novo. See United States v. Najjar, 283 F.3d 1306, 1307 (11th Cir. 2002).
Because United States Sentencing Guideline ("U.S.S.G.") § 5D1.3 mirrors the language used in this statute, we consider it together with 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d) in reviewing the district court's imposition of a special condition on a supervised release United States v. Bull, 214 F.3d 1275, 1278 (11th Cir. 2000) (adopting the holding in United States v. Johnson, 998 F.2d 696, 698 (9th Cir. 1993) that "`we... treat 5D1.3 in pari materia [with 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553 and 3583] — as a list of factors to guide the district court's discretion'"). At the time of Okoko's sentencing in July 1997, U.S.S.G. § 5D1.3(b) read as follows:
But see United States v. Isong, 111 F.3d 428 (6th Cir. 1997) (holding that the tolling of a supervised release during deportation may qualify as a special condition on the release under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d) and U.S.S.G. § 5D1.3). The government also cites United States v. Biyaga, 9 F.3d 204 (1st Cir. 1993), as supporting the district court's decision to deny Okoko's motion to dismiss. The Biyaga court did comment that the sentencing practice of the district court in that case of suspending the supervised release of an illegal alien from the time the defendant is deported until, and if, he returns to the United States, indicates a "reasonable concern." However, this statement is not the central holding of the case. Rather, the court held that the defendant's false statements to the sentencing judge purporting that he was an American citizen rather than an illegal alien, were material and obstructed justice.