Opinion ID: 531018
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The implicit special parole term requirement for gap offenses

Text: 53 Arguably, however, this analysis should not end our inquiry. There is a third possibility, not discussed in De Los Reyes, for dealing with the special parole issues in offenses occurring after the amended section 841(b) took effect October 27, 1986, and prior to the effective date of the supervised release requirements in that section on November 1, 1987. Since the new section 841(b) makes no reference whatsoever to special parole, and since all of that section except the supervised release term requirement became effective on October 27, 1986, one might persuasively argue that the new law eliminated the special parole term requirement for all violations of section 841(a) occurring in the gap period, regardless of the applicability of special parole prior to that date. 10 Section 1004(b), which provided for the delayed effective date of the changeover from special parole to supervised release, might have the implicit effect of preserving the special parole term requirement of pre-October 1986 law, but reading such an effect into that section requires a somewhat expansive construction of a criminal statute and the rule of lenity hence militates against imposing special parole terms for offenses occurring during the October 27, 1986-November 1, 1987 gap period. Cf. Bifulco v. United States, 447 U.S. 381, 100 S.Ct. 2247, 2258-59, 65 L.Ed.2d 205 (1980) (relying on the rule of lenity in the face of ambiguous congressional intent to hold that section 846, the narcotics conspiracy statute, does not authorize imposition of special parole terms). 54 Neither Byrd nor De Los Reyes unambiguously holds otherwise. The offense in De Los Reyes occurred on October 18, 1986, just prior to the effective date of the 1986 amendments, and hence prior to the beginning of the gap period. 11 The opinion in Byrd does not specify the date of the offense in that case, although it is perhaps inferable that it was during the gap. More recent cases in this Circuit, however, relying on Byrd and De Los Reyes, have clearly applied the special parole term requirement to section 841(b)(1)(B) offenses committed during this period. See, e.g., United States v. Posner, 865 F.2d 654, 657, 660 (5th Cir.1989) (February 1987 offense with sentence under section 841(b)(1)(B)); United States v. Molina-Uribe, 853 F.2d 1193, 1199 (5th Cir.1988) (December 1986 offense with sentence under section 841(b)(1)(B)). Other circuits have followed our lead. See, e.g., United States v. Whitehead, 849 F.2d 849, 860 (4th Cir.1988); United States v. Smith, 840 F.2d 886, 890 (11th Cir.1988). None of these cases provide any analysis in support of this result, but rather assume that Byrd forecloses the issue. Nonetheless, these cases bind our decision today. 55 In light of this precedent, we must conclude that the provision of section 1004 of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 that delayed the effective date of the supervised release requirement in section 841(b) also implicitly extended the application of the old special parole term requirements, at least insofar as those requirements existed just prior to the enactment of the 1986 amendments. Thus, at least for offenses subject to a special parole term requirement just prior to the enactment of the 1986 amendments, the special parole term requirement continued in effect until November 1, 1987. 12 Because Robles' distribution count is such an offense, we conclude that the district court did not err in imposing a special parole term upon him.