Opinion ID: 578658
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Upward Departure in Term of Supervised Release

Text: 33 The district court departed from the guideline supervised release term of two to three years and imposed a term of five years. This departure was based upon the same six circumstances relied on for the imprisonment departure above. Defendant alleges that 18 U.S.C.A. § 3553(b) (West Supp.1991), which allows departures from the sentencing guidelines, does not apply to terms of supervised release. Section 3553(b) provides: 34 The court shall impose a sentence of the kind, and within the range, referred to in subsection (a)(4) unless the court finds that there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines that should result in a sentence different from that described. 35 We agree with the government that the language in this statute is broad enough to cover departures from the guidelines supervised release terms. 36 Yet the supervised release terms provided for in the sentencing guidelines, U.S.S.G. § 5D1.2 (1990), are identical to the statutory maximums in 18 U.S.C.A. § 3583(b) (West Supp.1991). The district court may not exceed the statutory maximum, which in this case is three years. Id. The district court may, if it chooses, impose consecutive terms of supervised release. We therefore vacate the supervised release part of defendant's sentence and remand for resentencing consistent with our opinion. 37