Source: https://openjurist.org/673/f2d/43
Timestamp: 2017-09-21 20:00:48
Document Index: 90119118

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 9', '§ 5017', '§ 5011', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2']

673 F2d 43 Caballery v. United States Parole Commission | OpenJurist
673 F. 2d 43 - Caballery v. United States Parole Commission
673 F2d 43 Caballery v. United States Parole Commission
673 F.2d 43
Norberto CABALLERY, Petitioner-Appellant,
UNITED STATES PAROLE COMMISSION; United States Probation
Office, Southern District of New York; and Warden,
No. 156, Docket 81-2178.
The ex post facto clause of the Constitution, Art. I, § 9, cl. 3, "forbids the Congress ... to enact any law 'which imposes a punishment for an act which was not punishable at the time it was committed, or imposes additional punishment to that then prescribed.' " Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 28, 101 S.Ct. 960, 964, 67 L.Ed.2d 17 (1981), quoting Cummings v. Missouri, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 277, 325-26, 18 L.Ed. 356 (1867). The issue in this case, then, is whether the 1977 Parole Commission regulation, promulgated after appellant had been sentenced, constituted a change in the law which was "both retrospective and more onerous than the law in effect on the date of the offense." Weaver v. Graham, supra, 450 U.S. at 30-31, 101 S.Ct. at 965-966 (footnote omitted).
In the first place, although the language of 18 U.S.C. § 5017(c) is framed in mandatory terms and, if taken literally, would appear to require that a youth offender be "unconditionally"3 discharged six years after the date of his conviction, even if he had never actually served any part of his sentence, such an interpretation must be rejected as it would defeat the very purpose of the YCA. Congress's principal objective in enacting the YCA was to rehabilitate youth offenders who might be highly susceptible to the danger of recidivism. See Dorszynski v. United States, 418 U.S. 424, 433, 94 S.Ct. 3042, 3047, 41 L.Ed.2d 855 (1974), and the legislative history cited therein. Toward this end, the Act called for the implementation of programs of treatment4 and supervision geared toward rehabilitation. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 5011, 5019. The whole point of the Act was that "rehabilitative treatment should be substituted for retribution as a sentencing goal" where youth offenders are concerned. Durst v. United States, 434 U.S. 542, 545, 98 S.Ct. 849, 851, 55 L.Ed.2d 14 (1978) (footnote omitted).
Moreover, as Judge Lasker noted, there is a well-established common law principle that "(m)ere lapse of time without imprisonment or other restraint contemplated by the law does not constitute service of sentence." Anderson v. Corall, 263 U.S. 193, 196, 44 S.Ct. 43, 44, 68 L.Ed. 247 (1923).5 Parole, of course, constitutes a "restraint contemplated by the law" since the parolee is bound to remain under the control of his parole supervisor. Id. There is not the slightest indication in the statute's language or its legislative history that Congress intended to override this common sense lapse-of-time principle when it enacted the YCA.
Indeed, even before the Commission promulgated 28 C.F.R. § 2.10(c), courts applied this principle in construing the YCA to hold that a youth offender's sentence is tolled by escape from custody, Suggs v. Daggett, 522 F.2d 396 (10th Cir. 1975); Hartwell v. Jackson, 403 F.Supp. 1229 (D.D.C.1975), aff'd mem., 546 F.2d 1042 (D.C.Cir.1976); by incarceration for civil contempt, In Re McClanahan, 612 F.2d 642 (2nd Cir. 1979) and by release on bond pending appeal, Frye v. Moran, 302 F.Supp. 1291 (W.D.Tex.), summarily aff'd per curiam, 417 F.2d 315 (5th Cir. 1969). The same general principle was applied following the promulgation of 28 C.F.R. § 2.10(c) in Henrique v. United States Marshal, 476 F.Supp. 618 (N.D.Cal.1979), aff'd, 653 F.2d 1317 (9th Cir. 1981), where the court, faced with virtually the same issue as presented here, interpreted the YCA to permit tolling of a youth offender's sentence for the period during which the petitioner had absconded from parole supervision. The District Court there held that 28 C.F.R. § 2.10(c) did not constitute an ex post facto law because "it has never been the law that Youth Act (sic) sentences ran without interruption. Instead, factors which toll the running of youth offender sentences have been recognized as they have been presented to the courts." 476 F.Supp. at 624.6
We agree that it has never been the law that the YCA precluded the interruption and tolling of a youth offender's sentence for the time during which he had absconded from parole supervision. Furthermore, tolling a parolee's sentence for the period during which he is in abscondence does not "extend" or increase the original sentence. It merely incorporates the common law rule that lapse of time does not constitute service of sentence and, hence, stops the sentence from running for that period during which the offender, through some fault of his own, has failed to serve his sentence. See McDonald v. Lee, 217 F.2d 619, 623 (5th Cir. 1954), vacated as moot, 349 U.S. 948, 75 S.Ct. 619, 99 L.Ed. 1274 (1955).