Opinion ID: 392262
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Tolling Absconders' Sentences

Text: 7 The Youth Corrections Act (YCA) provides that any youth offender committed pursuant to the Act shall be discharged unconditionally on or before six years from the date of his conviction. 4 18 U.S.C. § 5017(c). Henrique argues that the Commission's jurisdiction over him ceased when the six-year period expired. The Government responds that courts have interpreted the statute so as best to effectuate the goals of the YCA and that those goals are best served by denying a youth offender sentence credit for time spent eluding parole supervision. 8 A current Commission regulation addresses the issue directly: 9 Service of the sentence of a committed youth offender ... commences to run from the date of conviction and is interrupted only when such prisoner or parolee (1) is on bail pending appeal; (2) is in escape status; (3) has absconded from parole supervision ; or (4) (has been imprisoned for civil contempt). 10 28 C.F.R. § 2.10(c) (emphasis added). The regulation was not in effect at the time Henrique absconded, however, and the Government does not argue that it should apply here. 5 The crucial issue is whether that part of the regulation dealing with abscondence represented a change from the pre-existing law, as Henrique argues, or merely codified the law, as the Government maintains. The legislative history of the YCA is silent on the issue. 6 Henrique argues that statutory construction and Commission practices support his interpretation. The Government argues that policy and analogous precedent should control. 11 In Ogg v. Klein, 572 F.2d 1379 (9th Cir. 1978), this court considered the closely analogous issue whether a youth offender's escape from custody should toll the running of the six-year sentence. The case interpreted the same statute, and involved many of the same considerations as those involved here. The prisoner, Ogg, had walked away from a youth facility without permission. At the time of the escape, the Commission had not adopted the regulation specifying that escapees' sentences would be interrupted. See 28 C.F.R. § 2.10(c)(2). Like Henrique, Ogg argued that the statute's text implied that discharge in six years was mandatory. Ogg also argued that, according to principles of statutory construction, the adoption of the regulation expressly providing for tolling of escapees' sentences implicitly recognized that sentences were not tolled prior to the regulation's promulgation. This court disagreed, finding that the regulation had merely restated pre-existing law providing for tolling of an escapee's sentence. 572 F.2d at 1383. In so ruling, this court referred approvingly to other courts which had reached similar conclusions, quoting at length from Judge Gerhard Gesell's opinion in Hartwell v. Jackson, 403 F.Supp. 1229 (D.D.C.1975), aff'd mem., 546 F.2d 1042 (D.C.Cir.1976). After noting the general rule that escape tolls the running of an adult sentence, Judge Gesell had reasoned: 12 Against this background, it is unrealistic to suggest that Congress intended to repeal this general rule by implication. While much can be said for assuming that Congress meant unequivocally what it said, it is unwarranted to stretch an inflexible interpretation beyond the realm of reason. Can the Court realistically assume that Congress believed youthful offenders were being rehabilitated while in escape status and that the beneficent purposes of the Youth Corrections Act were being accomplished while an offender lived without supervision in violation of his commitment? Surely not. Reason, justice and tradition strongly suggest that the Court must recognize the common-sense practicalities of the situation presented and refuse to be compelled into an absurd and unforeseen result by procrustean rules of statutory interpretation. No one can sensibly conclude that Congress, without a word in the legislative history, intended the novel and illogical result that youthful offenders who escaped from custody would still receive credit for serving a sentence they did not serve. 13 403 F.Supp. at 1230. Quoted in Ogg v. Klein, 572 F.2d at 1382. Other courts have carved exceptions to the six-year maximum sentence where policy has so warranted: escape (Suggs v. Daggett, 522 F.2d 396, 397 (10th Cir. 1975)); offender free on appeal bond (Frye v. Moran, 302 F.Supp. 1291 (W.D.Tex.), aff'd per curiam, 417 F.2d 315 (5th Cir. 1969)); intervening imprisonment for civil contempt (United States v. Marshall, 532 F.2d 410 (5th Cir. 1976)). 14 Henrique seeks to distinguish the legal status of escape from that of abscondence on the grounds of statutory construction and practice. He notes that the 1976 regulation dealing with escape, 28 C.F.R. § 2.10(b), also tolled the running of the sentence for offenders on bail pending appeal, but did not mention abscondence. Abscondence was added as a ground for interrupting the running of the sentence when the regulation was amended in 1977. Henrique therefore argues that principles of statutory construction suggest that the omission of abscondence from the initial incarnation of the regulation constituted an intentional exclusion. That argument, plausible in the abstract, is overborne by the more persuasive inference that the initial regulation merely embodied exceptions which had already been judicially recognized, whereas the case of abscondence had not yet been litigated. See Henrique I, 476 F.Supp. at 624. The discrepant timing of the regulatory provisions dealing with absconding is better explained by this absence of litigation than by any substantive distinction between escape and abscondence. 15 Henrique also argues that statements by agents of the Commission and Commission practices establish that absconding did not toll absconders' sentences prior to passage of the regulation. He adduces statements made by Commission employees to his attorney, 7 comments by the Chairman of the Commission in the Federal Register, 8 inconsistent litigative stances on the part of the Commission, 9 and the Commission's practice of stamping parole violation warrants with an expiration date coinciding with the expiration of the six-year term. 10 Judge Williams acknowledged in Henrique I that this evidence suggested that the Commission's interpretation of the law had changed. 476 F.Supp. at 623. At the least it indicates that the Commission's approach to absconders had been inconsistent. Judge Williams also found, however, that the evidence did not establish a regular Commission policy of according absconders credit for time spent in absconder status. Id. at 624. He also rejected Henrique's argument that the employees' representations estopped the Government from tolling the sentence, an argument which Henrique does not raise on this appeal. See id. at 625. 16 A formal agency interpretation of the statutes it administers is worthy of considerable deference from the courts. See, e. g., Zenith Radio Corp. v. United States, 437 U.S. 443, 450, 98 S.Ct. 2441, 2445, 57 L.Ed.2d 337 (1978). The evidence of inconsistency which Henrique presents here, however, does not amount to a coherent agency interpretation and in any case is here outweighed by the force of precedent, common sense, and the policies underlying the YCA. As Judge Williams noted, 17 If this court were to hold that abscondence from parole supervision did not toll the running of a Youth Act sentence it would be a clear invitation to all youth offenders who anticipated a revocation of their parole to elect to serve the remainder of their six year sentence underground rather than in prison. It would also encourage parolees who disliked the constraints placed upon them by their probation officers to enjoy unrestricted freedom in hiding. Surely Congress did not intend to make the beneficent purpose of the Act so easily evaded. 18 476 F.Supp. at 623. See also Hartwell v. Jackson, 403 F.Supp. at 1230; Suggs v. Daggett, 522 F.2d at 397. 19 We hold that the running of the six-year maximum sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 5017(c) is tolled when a youthful offender absconds from parole.