Opinion ID: 767434
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Authority to Impose Community Confinement as a Condition of Supervised Release

Text: 14 Section 3583(d) of Title 18 of the U.S. Code gives a district court broad discretion to order conditions of supervised release following a term of imprisonment. Bee , 162 F.3d at 1234-35 (citing United States v. Consuelo-Gonzalez, 521 F.2d 259, 265 (9th Cir. 1975) (en banc)). We have consistently held -both before and after the enactment of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 -that [t]he guiding principle for determining the validity of a condition of supervised release is whether the condition imposed can reasonably be said to contribute significantly both to the rehabilitation of the convicted person andto the protection of the public. Consuelo Gonzalez, 521 F.2d at 264; see also Bee, 162 F.3d at 1235 (affirming the authority of a court under S 3583(d) to impose a condition of supervised release on a defendant convicted of abusive sexual contact that prohibited possession of sexually stimulating material and barred contact with minors); United States v. Bolinger, 940 F.2d 478, 480-81 (9th Cir. 1991) (affirming a condition of supervised release that barred the probationer from associating with motorcycle clubs as necessary to prevent reversion into former crime-inducing lifestyle). 15 With the enactment of S 3583(d) in 1984, Congress expressly provided that a court may order as a condition of supervised release following imprisonment any condition that: 16 (1) . . . reasonably relates to the factors set forth in section 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B), (a)(2)(C), and (a)(2)(D); 3 17 (2) involves no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary for the purposes set forth in section 3553(a)(2)(B), (a)(2)(C), and (a)(2)(D); and 18 (3) is consistent with any pertinent policy statements issued by the Sentencing Com mission pursuant to 28 U.S.C. S 994(a); any condition set forth as a discretionary condition of probation in section 3563(b)(1) through (b)(10) and (b)(12) through (b)(20), and any other condition it considers to be appropriate. 19 Id. (emphasis added). 20 Bahe claims that the district court was not authorized to confine him to a community treatment center as a condition of his supervised release because S 3583(d)'s reference to S 3563(b)'s subsections does not include subsection (11). At the time of Bahe's sentencing in 1998, 4 subsection (11) of S 3563(b) authorized confinement in a community correction facility or participation in a community corrections program for all or part of a term of probation. See 18 U.S.C. S 3563(b)(11) (1998). Bahe seizes on S 3583(d)'s failure to refer to subsection (11) to argue that Congress expressly intended to deny the district court the authority to sentence him to community confinement for treatment of sexual deviancy as a condition of his supervised release following imprisonment. At first blush, Bahe's argument has superficial appeal given the language of this portion of S 3583(d) in effect in 1998. Cf. Tang v. Reno, 77 F.3d 1194, 1196 (9th Cir. 1996) (In interpreting a statute, we must examine its language. If `the statue is clear and unambiguous, that is the end of the matter.'  (quoting Sullivan v. Stroop, 496 U.S. 478, 482 (1990)). But Bahe is mistaken. A closer examination of S 3583(d) reveals an internal ambiguity. 21 Although the absence of a reference in S 3583(d) to subsection (11) suggests that a district court lacks the authority to impose this condition of supervised release, subsection (3) of S 3583(d) suggests that a district court has such authority. Subsection (3) states that a sentencing court may impose any condition of supervised release that is consistent with any pertinent policystatements issued by the Sentencing Commission pursuant to 28 U.S.C. S 994(a). . .. The Sentencing Commission has promulgated one policy statement and a corresponding guideline that are pertinent to the resolution of this case. Both expressly authorize a district court to impose community confinement as a condition of supervised release following imprisonment. 5 Specifically, the policy statement set forth in Sentencing Guideline S 5D1.3, entitled Conditions of Supervised Release, states that community confinement may be imposed as a special condition of supervised release where appropriate on a case-by-case basis. U.S.S.G. S 5D1.3(e). Community confinement is defined as [r]esidence in a community treatment center, halfway house or similar facility. U.S.S.G. S 5D1.3(e)(1) (crossreferencing Sentencing Guideline S 5F1.1). Sentencing Guideline S 5F1.1 provides that [c]ommunity confinement may be imposed as a condition of probation or supervised release. U.S.S.G. S 5F1.1. 6 Indeed, the district court in this case specifically relied on S 5F1.1 in imposing community confinement as a condition of Bahe's supervised release. 22 Hence, a district court's authority under subsection (3) of S 3583(d) appears to be at odds with its authority under the portion of S 3583(d) that refers to the subsections of S 3563(b). 7 Because of this internal inconsistency, the meaning of S 3583(d) is unclear. Where statutory language is not clear, Congress's intent must still be ascertained. Tang, 77 F.3d at 1197. In interpreting S 3583(d), we must therefore consider  `[t]he purpose, the subject matter, the context [and] the legislative history' of this statute. United States v. ValenciaAndrade, 72 F.3d 770, 773-74 (9th Cir. 1995) (quoting United States v. Miguel, 49 F.3d 505, 507 (9th Cir. 1995). Indeed, the meaning of statutory language, plain or not, depends on context. Holloway v. United States, 119 S. Ct. 966, 970 (1999) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Context in this regard relates to the design of the statute as a whole and its object and policy. Gozlon-Peretz v. United States, 498 U.S. 395, 407 (1991) (quoting Crandon v. United States, 494 U.S. 152, 158 (1990)). We therefore turn to an examination of the statute's legislative history, its language and structure as a whole, the governing case law, and the applicable Sentencing Guidelines.
23 In 1984, Congress enacted SS 3563(b) and 3583(d) as part of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (the Act), set forth in Title II of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. See Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, chs. 227-228, Pub. L. 98-473, Title II, 98 Stat. 1993 (1984) (codified as amended 18 U.S.C. SS 3551-3742 (1997)); see also S. REP. 98-225,  (reporting the recommendations of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary concerning passage of the Act). The Act gave sentencing courts the authority to impose discretionary conditions of probation under S 3563(b) and discretionary conditions of supervised release following imprisonment under S 3583(d). See id. at -, - (emphasis added). Understanding the difference between probation and a term of supervised release following imprisonment is essential to understanding the import of the clerical error in 18 U.S.C. S 3583(d). 24 Under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 probation is a sentence in and of itself, which may be imposed as an alternative to incarceration. U.S.S.G., Pt. B, Intro. comment. (1998) (citing 18 U.S.C. S 3561); see also S. REP. 98-225 (1983), reprinted in 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3182, available in 1983 WL 25404, -. But imposition of probation is prohibited where the defendant is sentenced at the same time to a sentence of imprisonment for the same or a different offense. U.S.S.G. S 5B1.1, comment. background (citing 18 U.S.C. S 3561(a)(3) and S. REP. 98-225). The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 thus effectively abolished split sentences, but replaced them with the functional equivalent of a term of imprisonment followed by a period of supervised release. Id. (citing former 18 U.S.C. S 3651 (repealed in 1984), 18 U.S.C. S 3583, and S. R EP. 98-225). Moreover, conditions of probation can be fashioned so as to meet fully the statutory purposes of sentencing, including . . . just punishment for the offense, id. (emphasis added); see also 18 U.S.C. S 3553(a)(2)(A) cited in 18 U.S.C. S 3563(b), but conditions of supervised release may not involve punishment or incarceration, see 18 U.S.C. S 3583(d). 25 Furthermore, Congress established conditions of supervised release following imprisonment as distinct sentencing options from that of probation. These sentencing options replaced the previous system of parole. See S. REP. 98-225, -. Under the parole system, the parole board could release a prisoner on a supervised basis before the prisoner's sentence was fully served, but any condition of release imposed ended when the prisoner's sentence ended. See id.; 18 U.S.C. SS 4201-4218 (repealed 1984, repeal effective 1987). Under the new system, a prisoner must serve the full term of his sentence, and if the sentencing court deems it necessary, an additional term of supervised release. See 18 U.S.C. S 3583(b); S. REP. 98-225, at  ([W]hether the defendant will be supervised following his term of imprisonment is dependent on whether the judge concludes that he needs supervision, rather than on the question whether a particular amount of his term of imprisonment remains.). 26 As originally enacted in 1984,S 3583(d) unequivocally gave a sentencing court the authority to confine a defendant to a community correction facility for rehabilitative treatment as a discretionary condition of his or her supervised release following imprisonment. See 18 U.S.C. S 3563(b)(12) (1984); see also S. REP. 98-225, at -. That authority was given by S 3583(d)'s reference to subsection (12) of S 3563(b) as one of the conditions of probation that a sentencing court may impose as a condition of supervised release. See 18 U.S.C. S 3583(d) (1984); see also S. R EP. 98-225, at . In 1984, subsection (12) of S 3563(b) authorized confinement in a community treatment facility as a condition of probation. See 18 U.S.C. S 3563(b)(12); see also S. REP. 98-225, at -. Paragraph (12) [of S 3563(b)] provide[d] that the judge may impose as a condition of probation that the defendant reside at, or participate in the program of, a community corrections facility for all or part of a term of probation. Id. at . Congress's intent in 1984 was thus clear. It intended that under S 3583(d) a sentencing court may impose confinement to a community treatment facility as a condition of supervised release following imprisonment. That intent and the court's authority continued unabated and unaltered for more than a decade. 27 Twelve years later, Congress made the clerical error that gives rise to this appeal. The error occurred when Congress enacted the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996, a portion of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. See Mandatory Victims Restitution Act of 1996, Pub. L. 103-132, Title II, Subtitle A, 110 Stat 1227 (1996) (codified as 18 U.S.C. SS 3663A, 3613A). With the MVRA, Congress sought to establish a unitary legislative scheme to mandate victim restitution. To accomplish this goal, Congress enacted new sections of Title 18 and deleted others -including subsection (2) of S 3563(b), which authorized the imposition of a fine as a discretionary condition of supervised release. See generally H.R. CONF. REP. 104-518 (1996), reprinted in 1996 U.S.C.C.A.N. 944, available in 1996 WL 183509, at . Because the MVRA deleted subsection (2), it also renumbered the remaining subsections of S 3563(b). See 18 U.S.C. 3563(b) (historical and statutory notes, which read in pertinent part: Pub. L. 104-132, S 203(2)(A), struck out former par. (2) . . . [and] S 203(2)(B), redesignated former pars. (3) to (21) as (2) to (20), respectively). As a result, the community confinement subsection shifted from S 3563(b)(12) to (11) -the numerical subsection omitted from S 3583(d), which remained unchanged. 28 Nothing in the text or legislative history of the MVRA or S 3563 suggests that Congress intended to alter the conditions that a sentencing court may attach to a term of supervised release under S 3583(d). Nor is there any indication that Congress ever intended the MVRA to exclude or eliminate a sentencing court's authority to confine a defendant to a community treatment center as a condition of his or her supervised release. Although the legislative history of the MVRA is extensive, see generally H.R. CONF. REP. 104-518, it is utterly silent as to its affect on S 3583(d). Under these circumstances, we decline to interpret this silence as an indication of congressional intent to amend the law on conditions of supervised release. As we have previously stated: 29 We do not lightly presume that Congress intended to work a substantive change to existing law with an ambiguous amendment. Absent any mention in a statute's legislative history that Congress intended a change, courts ordinarily will refuse to find that ambiguous statutory language significantly alters an existing statutory scheme. 30 In re Century Cleaning Services, Inc., 195 F.3d 1053, 1060 (9th Cir. Nov. 18, 1999) (citing Dewsnup v. Timm, 502 U.S. 410, 41920 (1992)). Quite simply, if Congress intended to abandon a discretionary condition of supervised release that had been the law for over twelve years, surely it would have mentioned this intent somewhere in the legislative history. It did not. Cf. Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 601 (1990) (noting that if Congress had meant to alter the previously enacted definition of a burglary when it subsequently and inadvertently omitted a reference to it in later amendments, its intent surely . . . would have been mentioned somewhere in the legislative history). We therefore hold that S 3583(d)'s failure to reference the subsection of S 3563(b) that authorizes community confinement for rehabilitative purposes was an inadvertent casualty of [the] complex drafting process involved in enacting the MVRA, which does not support the inference that Congress intended to alter the authority of a sentencing court under S 3583(d). Cf. id. at 589-90 (holding that Congress's deletion of Title 18's original definition of burglary, which occurred when the Career Criminals Amendment Act of 1986 was enacted, was an inadvertent casualty of a complex drafting process that did support the inference that Congress intended to change the statutory definition of burglary). 31 On the other hand, the legislative history of both SS 3563(b) and 3583(d) reveals that when Congress enacted the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, it chose to omit from S 3583(d) the condition of probation originally set forth in subsection (11) of S 3563(b) because subsection (11) authorized intermittent incarceration as a condition of probation. See S. REP. 98-225, at -83; see also 18 U.S.C. S 3563(b)(11) (1984) (authorizing a district court to order a defendant to remain in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons during nights, weekends, or other intervals of time, totaling no more than the lesser of one year or the term of imprisonment authorized for the offense, during the first year of the term of probation). Intermittent incarceration is not an appropriate condition of a defendant's supervised release following his release from prison because a defendant cannot be released until he or she has already served his full term of imprisonment. See id. Indeed, Congress expressly enacted the original version of subsection (b)(11) of S 3563 in 1984 only as a condition of a sentence of probation -not as a condition of supervised release following a term of imprisonment under S 3583. See S. REP. 98-225, at . It was sufficiently punitive to constitute a probationary sentencing option, but also permitted flexible and intermittent periods of imprisonment, such as on weekends, intermixed with short periods of commitment to a training center or institution as a part of a rehabilitation program, in lieu of straight imprisonment. Id. It was specifically 32 not intended to carry forward the split sentence pro vided in [former] 18 U.S.C. S3651, by which the judge impose[d] a sentence of a few months in prison followed by probation. If such a sentence is believed appropriate in a particular case, the judge can impose a term of imprisonment followed by a term of supervised release under section 3583, which section was amended by the committee in the 97th Congress to permit such application. 33 Id. (emphasis added). 34 Moreover, [a] key difference between the probation statute [S 3563] and the supervised release statute [S 3583] is that the probation statute allows the imposition of discretionary conditions that are reasonably related to [the sentencing purpose of a just punishment under] S 3553(a)(2)(A), while the supervised release statute does not. United States v. Eyler, 67 F.3d 1386, 1393 & n.8 (9th Cir. 1995) (recognizing that conditions of probation versus supervised release, although often treated similarly, . . . are distinct in status). Rehabilitative treatment commensurate with the nature of the offense and the defendant's history and characteristics that is necessary to ensure the public's safety in the future are the only purposes for which conditions of supervised release may be imposed. See 18 U.S.C. S 3583(d) (citing SS 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B)(a)(2)(D)). Intermittent official detention or incarceration as a condition of probation is obviously punitive, but confinement to a community correction center or halfway house for rehabilitative treatment is not. See Reno v. Koray, 515 U.S. 50, 59 (1995) (holding that pretrial confinement at a community treatment facility is not imprisonment and therefore cannot be credited against a defendant's prison sentence); Tanner v. Silvey, 76 F.3d 302, 303-04 (9th Cir. 1996) (holding that confinement to a community treatment center does not constitute official detention or incarceration). 35 Thus, Congress originally and naturally excluded from S 3583(d) any reference to the subsection ofS 3563(b) that authorized intermittent incarceration and included the subsection authorizing community confinement for rehabilitative purposes. And from 1984 until 1996, that was the law. Beginning in 1996, when the subsections of S 3563(b) were renumbered, subsection (11) no longer referred to intermittent incarceration, but instead referred to confinement in a community treatment center for rehabilitative purposes, which had been subsection (12) before the renumbering. As a result, the authority of a district court to impose this condition of supervised release was inadvertently and unintentionally eliminated. 36 We therefore conclude that the legislative history of SS 3583(d) and 3563(b) makes abundantly clear that Congress intended for sentencing courts to have the discretion to impose community confinement for rehabilitative purposes as a condition of supervised release following imprisonment. Congress's reason for omitting from S 3583(d) reference to subsection (11) of S 3563(b) had nothing to do with its intent regarding the authority to impose this condition. To the contrary, unrelated substantive changes to S 3563(b) and an accompanying numerical shift in S 3563(b)'s subsections caused an inadvertent clerical error in S 3583(d). That inadvertent clerical error did not and should not alter the discretionary authority of a sentencing court under S 3583(d) in light of the unambiguous legislative history to the contrary. 37 It would thus be absurd to accept Bahe's interpretation of the Act. See Tang, 77 F.3d at 1196-97 (suggesting that there is a need to look beyond the plain meaning in order to derive the `purpose' of [a] statute where not to do so would lead to an absurd result). Bahe's interpretation would require us to hold that a sentencing court may not impose confinement to a community treatment facility or halfway house for rehabilitative purposes as a condition of supervised release following imprisonment when congressional intent to the contrary is explicit and unassailable. We therefore decline to do so. Cf. United States v. Childress, 104 F.3d 47, 52 (4th Cir. 1996) (holding the plain language of a criminal statute controls, unless (1) ambiguity exists in the language of the statute, or (2) a literal reading of the statute would contravene the legislative intent), cited with approval in United States v. Moore, 136 F.3d 1343, 1345 (9th Cir. 1998) (adopting the reasoning stated in Childress and therefore holding that given the absence of clear legislative history to the contrary, the court could not correct a misnumbering drafting error created by Congress at the time it enacted a single statutory scheme.) Cf. also Gozlon-Peretz, 498 U.S. at 404-06 (holding that, although it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in disparate inclusions or exclusions, where Congress omits the effective date of one provision of a statute and includes a date for another, the court will infer that the provision for which no date is given takes effect on the date of enactment, absent a clear direction by Congress to the contrary). 38
39 We have consistently interpreted 18 U.S.C. S 3583(d), especially its catch-all provision, as affording sentencing courts broad discretion in setting conditions of supervised release. Bee, 162 F.3d at 1234. The overarching purpose in imposing conditions of supervised release, as discussed above, is to ensure that the rehabilitative needs of the defendant are met and that the community into which the defendant will be released is protected from further harm by the defendant. See id. at 1235; see also 18 U.S.C. SS 3553 (a)(1), (a)(2)(B)-(D); S. REP. 225, at -. A district court's discretion [in this regard] is limited only by the purposes and factors set forth in section 3553(a) to which a condition of supervised release must  `reasonably relate.'  Carter, 159 F.3d at 400 (quoting 18 U.S.C. S 3583(d)(1),(2)). 40 Thus, [e]ven very broad conditions are reasonable if they are intended to promote the probationer's rehabilitation and to protect the public. Bee, 162 F.3d at 1235 (citing numerous examples of other cases in which we have affirmed broad conditions of supervised release). For example, in Bee we held that a condition that infringed on a defendant's fundamental right of free speech was sufficiently related to the goal of `protect[ing] the public from further crimes of the defendant,'  to effectively address [the defendant's] sexual deviance problem, and properly reflected the seriousness of the offense conduct. Id. at 1234-35 (quoting 18 U.S.C. S 3553(a)(2)(c) and affirming as conditions of supervised release restrictions on the defendant's right to have contact with minor children, to loiter within 100 feet of school yards, parks, playgrounds, arcades, or other places primarily used by children under the age of 18, and to possess any sexually stimulating or sexually oriented material deemed inappropriate by his probation officer). Similarly, in Carter, we held that S 3583(d)'s catch-all provision authorized the discretionary imposition of alcohol testing and outpatient drug treatment as a condition of supervised release of a defendant convicted of armed robbery, despite the absence of evidence that the defendant had a history of drug or alcohol abuse. See 159 F.3d at 398, 401 (holding that evidence of the defendant's suicide attempt by overdosing on migraine medication was a sufficient basis for the district court to conclude that drug and alcohol testing and treatment were necessary for the defendant's rehabilitation). 41 If, as a condition of supervised release, a defendant's right to free speech may be abridged to effectively address [his] sexual deviance problem, Bee, 162 F.3d at 1235, then a fortiori, a defendant may be committed to community confinement for sexual deviancy treatment as a condition of supervised release. It would be illogical to rule otherwise. 42 Moreover, sentencing a defendant such as Bahe to a community corrections facility so that he can be treated for his sexual deviancy -after he serves fifteen months in prison, but before he reenters society at large -directly serves a primary goal for conditions of supervised release. According to Congress, one of [t]he primary goal[s] of . . . a term [of supervised release] is to provide rehabilitation to a defendant who has spent a fairly short period in prison for punishment . . . . S. REP. 98-225, at . Bahe's condition of supervised release clearly constitutes a sentence designed for the rehabilitation of a defendant who has spent a fairly short period in prison for punishment. Id. 43 Furthermore, the grammatical structure of S 3583(d) as a whole suggests that Congress linked the reference to S 3563(b)'s subsections to the catch-all provision that permits a district court to impose any other condition it considers to be appropriate. Section 3583(d) states in one clause that a court may order any condition set forth as a discretionary condition of probation in section 3563(b)(1) through (b)(10) and (b)(12) through (b)(20), and any other condition it considers appropriate. This phraseology suggests that Congress did not intend the list of S 3563(b)'s subsections as a limitation on a sentencing court's discretionary authority to impose such conditions. Rather, it suggests that Congress intended it as a non-exhaustive, illustrative list of possible conditions of supervised release that a court may deem appropriate. 8 Indeed, the legislative history of the Act, as discussed above, evinces Congress's intent to leave to the sound discretion of the sentencing court the determination whether a term of supervised release following imprisonment is necessary to rehabilitate a defendant and to protect the public. See id. at -36 ([W]hether the defendant will be supervised following his term of imprisonment is dependent on whether the judge concludes that he needs supervision, rather than on the question whether a particular amount of his term of imprisonment remains.); see also Carter, 159 F.3d at 400. In this respect, we conclude that the fact that S 3583(d) fails to refer to subsection (b)(11) of S 3563 has limited meaning and certainly does not signify that a district court lacks the authority to impose this condition of supervised release when it deems it necessary to a defendant's rehabilitation and the public's safety. 44 Here, the district court determined, and Bahe does not dispute, that he needed treatment for his sexual deviancy. The district court further determined that confinement to a community treatment center was necessary to ensure that Bahe receive that treatment. Thus, his condition of supervised release was intended to promote the probationer's rehabilitation and to protect the public. Bee, 162 F.3d at 1235. It was therefore reasonably relate[d] to the factors set forth in section 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B), (a)(2)(C), and (a)(2)(d) and involve[d] no greater deprivation than[was] reasonably necessary, in accordance with the dictates ofS 3583(d) as a whole. 18 U.S.C. S 3583(d).
45 Finally, as discussed above, we note that the Sentencing Guidelines explicitly authorize the imposition of community confinement as a condition of supervised release. See U.S.S.G. S 5F1.1 (Community confinement may be imposed as a condition of probation or supervised release.). And the Sentencing Commission's policy statement on conditions of supervised release includes community confinement as one of five special conditions of supervised release that may be appropriate on a case-by-case basis. U.S.S.G.S 5D1.3(e)(1). The Sentencing Commission promulgated both of these Guidelines pursuant to its authority under 28 U.S.C.S 994(a). Under subsection (3) of S 3583(d), a sentencing court may impose any condition that is consistent with any pertinent policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission pursuant to 28 U.S.C. S 994(a). 18 U.S.C.S 3583(d)(3). Therefore, a sentencing court has the authority under subsection (3) to confine a defendant, such as Bahe, to a community treatment center for rehabilitative purposes as a condition of his supervised release. 46 Sentencing Guidelines SS 5D1.3(e)(1) and 5F1.1 thus echo and amplify Congress's unambiguous intent to give sentencing courts the discretion to impose this condition of supervised release. The fact that they give sentencing courts this authority unequivocally further supports our conclusion that the inadvertent omission from S 3583(d) of the subsection of S 3563(b) that authorizes community confinement as a condition of probation has little significance.