Court Opinion

ID: 9490847
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:56:16.079512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:20.980859
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
These two eases arise because Congress recently has passed a number of new statutes governing terms of supervised release, statutes which alter previous law and create a series of problems of interpretation. The first statute we must interpret in this appeal is 18 U.S.C. § 3583(h), which enables a District Court to reimpose supervised release as part of the sentence for a defendant who has violated the terms of his original supervised release. I agree with the majority that the application of section 3583(h) to defendants Page and Fullum does not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause based on the reasoning of this Court’s decision in United States v. Reese, 71 F.3d 582 (6th Cir.1995), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 116 S.Ct. 2529, 135 L.Ed.2d 1053 (1996). Because Page does not raise any further issues, I agree with the majority that Page’s sentence should be affirmed.
I do not agree with the majority’s decision to affirm Fullum’s sentence because I agree with the two additional arguments that Ful-lum raises on appeal: (1) that the District Court in its initial sentence incorrectly classified Fullum’s offense as a Class B rather than a Class C felony; and (2) that if his offense is reclassified to a Class C felony, then his term of supervised release must be reduced from five years to three years. The majority holds that even if Fullum’s offense were reclassified to a Class C felony, the District Court was still permitted to impose a five-year term of supervised release. Therefore, the majority does not address the reclassification of Fullum’s offense.
Unlike the majority, I find that if Fullum’s offense were reclassified to a Class C felony, then he would be entitled to have his supervised release term reduced from five to three years. Thus, I must address whether the District Court incorrectly classified Fullum’s offense as a Class B felony, the classification under 18 U.S.C. § 3559 at the time of Ful-lum’s offense. Before Fullum was sentenced, section 3559 was amended, and the new amendment reclassified Fullum’s offense to a Class C felony. I would hold that the District Court should have applied the amended section 3559, and therefore Fullum’s offense should have been classified as a Class C felony. I would also hold that if Fullum’s offense was a Class C felony, then his supervised release sentence should have been three years and not five years because 18 U.S.C. § 3583(b) limits supervised release sentences for Class C felonies to three years. The majority upholds Fullum’s five-year term of supervised release because the statute under which Fullum was charged, 21 U.S.C. § 841, provides that Fullum can receive a supervised release sentence of “at least three years” with no maximum. Congress was unclear as to which statute should govern. Therefore, under the rule of lenity, I would reverse the District Court and hold that Fullum is entitled to three years of supervised release.
I. Classification of Fullum’s Felony
Fullum argues that the District Court incorrectly classified his offense as a Class B felony instead of a Class C felony. According to Fullum, if his offense is classified as a Class C felony, then he is entitled to have his supervised release term reduced from five to *1182three years. Page does not join in this argument because he received a three-year term of supervised release. The majority did not reach this issue because they hold that even if Fullum were entitled to have his offense reclassified to a Class C felony, the majority would still affirm the five-year term of supervised release. I address this issue because I find that if Fullum’s offense were reclassified to a Class C felony, then he would be entitled to have his supervised release sentence reduced from five to three years.
Fullum was charged with distribution of cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), which had a maximum statutory penalty of twenty years in prison. At the time of the offense, April 20, 1988, 18 U.S.C. § 3559(a) classified offenses with maximum terms of imprisonment of twenty or more years as Class B felonies. On November 18, 1988, Congress amended section 3559 and reclassified the felonies. Under the new section 3559, offenses with maximum prison terms of less than twenty-five years but more than ten years were classified as Class C felonies. Therefore, if the new statute were applied to Fullum, then his offense would be a Class C felony. Approximately eight months after the statute was changed and the offenses reclassified, on July 14, 1989, Fullum pled guilty.
The District Court held that Fullum should be sentenced under the Class B felony classification in effect at the time he committed the offense. For this proposition, the Court relied entirely on 1 U.S.C. § 109, a criminal savings statute, which provides:
The repeal of any statute shall not have the effect to release or extinguish any penalty, forfeiture, or liability incurred under such statute, unless the repealing Act shall so expressly provide, and such statute shall be treated as still remaining in force for the purpose of sustaining any proper action or prosecution for the enforcement of such penalty, forfeiture, or liability.
In its decision, the District Court relied on several cases which applied this criminal savings statute. See United States v. Jacobs, 919 F.2d 10 (3rd Cir.1990) (holding that felony should be classified at time of offense and should not alter probation eligibility); United States v. Cook, 890 F.2d 672 (4th Cir.1989) (same); Margiotta v. United States, 788 F.Supp. 145 (E.D.N.Y.1992), aff'd, 993 F.2d 1532 (2nd Cir.1993) (holding that the savings statute prevented Class B offenses from being reclassified as Class C offenses and therefore imposing the longer supervised release term applicable to Class B felonies); United States v. Primavera, No. 91-00102-04, 1993 WL 273990 (E.D.Pa. June 30, 1993), aff'd, 19 F.3d 645 (3rd Cir.1994) (same). The District Court also noted that the savings statute applies to statutory amendments. See United States v. Mechem, 509 F.2d 1193, 1194 n. 3 (10th Cir.1975); Margiotta, 788 F.Supp. at 148.
I would hold that the District Court’s ruling was in error because two years of “supervised release” should not be characterized as a “penalty” to be saved under this statute. My reading of the savings statute, as explained by the Supreme Court in Warden v. Marrero, 417 U.S. 658, 94 S.Ct. 2532, 41 L.Ed.2d 383 (1974), leads me to conclude that the term “penalty” in the savings statute was intended to have a narrow meaning. The Supreme Court explained that Congress first enacted the general savings provision in 1871 “to abolish the common-law presumption that the repeal of a criminal statute resulted in the abatement of ‘all prosecutions which had not reached final disposition to the highest court authorized to review them.’ ” Marrero, 417 U.S. at 660, 94 S.Ct. at 2536 (quoting Bradley v. United States, 410 U.S. 605, 607, 93 S.Ct. 1151, 1154, 35 L.Ed.2d 528 (1973)). The Supreme Court further explained that these abatements are “often the product of legislative inadvertence.” Id. at 660, 94 S.Ct. at 2536. The two-year decrease in Fullum’s supervised release sentence does not qualify as an abatement of punishment due to legislative inadvertence because the decrease was deliberate and designed to apply to pending cases.
The Marrero decision is distinguishable from the case before us because the Court saw a legislative inadvertence. In Marrero, the defendant was sentenced under a statute making him ineligible for parole, and the Supreme Court refused to give the defendant the benefit of a new statute which would *1183have made him eligible for parole. The Supreme Court held that the savings statute required application of the old statute because “only an unusual prisoner could be expected to think that he was not suffering a penalty when he was denied eligibility for parole.” Id. at 662, 94 S.Ct. at 2538. In contrast to the statute in Marrero, which denied the defendant the opportunity to leave prison, the supervised release statute permits the defendant to leave prison and reenter society. Congress deliberately — not inadvertently — decreased the period of supervision in certain cases. Supervised release was created to assist a defendant to adjust to life outside of prison and to serve a more rehabilitative function:
The Committee has concluded that the sentencing purposes of incapacitation and punishment would not be served by a term of supervised release — that the primary goal of such a term is to ease the defendant’s transition into the community after the service of a long prison term for a particularly serious offense, or to provide rehabilitation to a defendant who has spent a fairly short period in prison for punishment or other purposes but still needs supervision and training programs after release.
S.Rep. No. 98-225, at 124 (1984), reprinted in 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3182, 3307. Thus, we find that the holding in Marrero is not in point and does not require the application of the savings statute in this case.
Obviously, supervised release imposes some burden on a defendant by regulating his behavior, but regulation of behavior is not necessarily a “penalty.” Many laws in our society regulate the behavior of citizens: tax laws require citizens to surrender part of their income to the government; gun control laws require the registration of weapons; zoning laws regulate the type of structures citizens can build; environmental protection laws regulate behavior which is potentially harmful to the environment; securities registration laws require the disclosure of information on a continuing basis; and, speed limit laws require drivers to drive below a certain speed. None of these laws are considered penalties.
The Supreme Court’s recent 5-4 opinion in Kansas v. Hendricks, — U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 2072, 138 L.Ed.2d 501 (1997), reinforces this view. In Hendricks, the Supreme Court reviewed a Kansas law that permitted the State to involuntarily confine any individual who had been convicted of or charged with a sexually violent offense and who suffered “mental abnormality” which made the individual likely to engage in “predatory acts of sexual violence.” Kan.Stat.Ann. § 59-29a02(b) (1994). The Supreme Court held that this involuntary confinement, which occurred after Hendricks had served his prison sentence, did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause or the Ex Post Facto Clause because it was not punitive.
The Supreme Court explained that the Kansas Act was not punitive in the penalty or punishment sense because it did not implicate either of the two primary objectives of criminal punishment: retribution or deterrence. Hendricks, at -, 117 S.Ct. at 2082. Even though the Act was “tied to criminal activity,” such a link was “insufficient to render the statut[e] punitive.” Id. at -, 117 S.Ct. at 2082 (quoting United States v. Ursery, — U.S. -, -, 116 S.Ct. 2135, 2149, 135 L.Ed.2d 549 (1996)). When Hendricks argued that the Act was punitive because he was being restrained involuntarily, the Supreme Court explained that the “mere fact that a person is detained does not inexorably lead to the conclusion that the government has imposed punishment.” Id. at -, 117 S.Ct. at 2083 (quoting United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 107 S.Ct. 2095, 95 L.Ed.2d 697 (1987)). When Hendricks argued that the Act was punitive because his confinement could be of indefinite duration, the Supreme Court disagreed because the Act required judicial proceedings every year to determine whether the involuntarily confined individual continued to require confinement. When Hendricks argued that the Act was punitive because he was not receiving any treatment as part of his confinement, the Supreme Court disagreed, stating that “under the appropriate circumstances and when accompanied by proper procedures, incapacitation may be a legitimate end of the civil law.” Id. at -, 117 S.Ct. at 2084.
*1184If such involuntary confinement is not punitive for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause and the Ex Post Facto Clause, then surely supervised release is not a “penalty” for purposes of the criminal savings statute. The Kansas Act is more of a penalty than the supervised release statute because the Kansas Act imposes involuntary confinement while the supervised release statute enables the defendant to live without confinement. Otherwise, the Kansas Act is similar to the supervised release statute. Like the Kansas legislature, Congress explained in its legislative history that the primary goal of supervised release is not retribution or deterrence. Specifically, the legislative history provides that supervised release “may not be imposed for purposes of punishment or incapacitation since those purposes will have been served to the extent necessary by the term of imprisonment.” 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 3308. Similar to the Kansas statute, the supervised release statute allows a court to terminate the remainder of a defendant’s supervised release after one year if his conduct and the interests of justice so require. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(1).
In making the determination that supervised release is not a “penalty” under the savings statute, I do not conclude that supervised release is not “punishment” for cases involving the Ex Post Facto Clause or the Double Jeopardy Clause. That question is not presented in this case. Using the analogy drawn from the Hendricks case, I would simply conclude that supervised release is not a “penalty” for purposes of the savings statute. I do not believe that Congress intended to prevent the application of deliberate reductions of supervised release.
II. Length Of Fullum’s Supervised Release
The District Court classified Fullum’s original offense as a Class B felony and sentenced Fullum to a five-year term of supervised release. After Fullum violated the terms of his original supervised release sentence, the District Court sentenced Fullum to eight months in prison and reimposed the remainder of his original five-year supervised release sentence, with credit for time spent in prison. Fullum challenges the District Court’s decision to impose the five-year term of supervised release.
Fullum argues that if this Court reclassifies his original offense to a Class C felony, then this Court must reduce his supervised release sentence to three years because section 3583(b) limits supervised release sentences for Class C felonies to no more than three years.1 The majority assumes for the sake of argument that Fullum’s offense should be reclassified to a Class C felony. Despite this assumption, the majority still holds that the District Court was permitted to impose the five-year supervised release sentence because section 841(b)(1)(C), the statute under which Fullum was sentenced, provides that Fullum could be sentenced to “at least three years” of supervised release with no maximum.2
I find that the statutory provisions, 18 U.S.C. § 3583(b) and 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C), are basically incoherent because Congress passed two conflicting statutes and failed to explain when to apply them. Section 841 provides minimum supervised release sentences for offenders of that statute based on their crimes and criminal history; in this case, section 841(b)(1)(C) provides that the District Court could sentence Fullum to a supervised release term of “at least three years.” Section 3583(b) limits supervised release sentences for offenses based on the Class of the felony; in this case, section 3583(b) provides that the supervised release term for Fullum’s Class C felony could be “not more than three years.” We must decide whether the three-year maximum term set by section 3583(b) prevents *1185the District Court, sentencing Fullum under section 841(b)(1)(C), from imposing a supervised release sentence exceeding three years. The majority acknowledges that the Circuits are split when faced with cases similar to the one before us.
The Circuit split illustrates that it is unclear which statute governs in Fullum’s situation. Under the rule of lenity, an ambiguity in a criminal statute must be resolved in favor of the defendant. See United States v. Morton, 17 F.3d 911, 915 (6th Cir.1994); United States v. Romano, 970 F.2d 164 (6th Cir.1992); United States v. Minarik, 875 F.2d 1186 (6th Cir.1989). Under the circumstances, defendant Fullum is entitled to the benefit of the ambiguity Congress created by passing two conflicting statutes. Therefore, I would hold that Fullum is entitled to a supervised release term of three years.

. The pertinent provision of 18 U.S.C. § 3583(b) provides: "Except as otherwise provided, the authorized terms of supervised release are — (1) for a Class A or Class B felony, not more than five years; (2) for a Class C or Class D felony, not more than three years...."

. The pertinent provision of 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C) provides: "Anj' sentence imposing a term of imprisonment under this paragraph shall, in the absence of such a prior conviction, impose a term of supervised release of at least 3 years in addition to such a term of imprisonment. ...”