Court Opinion

ID: 9494947
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:51:07.855491+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:43.815358
License: Public Domain

MICHAEL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority says that it was proper for six months of home confinement to be considered imprisonment when that interpretation allowed the district court to order a new term of supervised release for Gary Hager under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(h). The majority holds, however, that this same home confinement does not equal imprisonment for the purpose of allowing Hager to receive six months’ credit against a two-year prison term imposed under § 3583(e)(3) for his violation of the new term of supervised release. Because this inconsistent approach results in unfair punishment for Hager, I respectfully dissent.
Hager was convicted in 1995 for possession of a sawed-off shotgun, a class D felony. He was sentenced to thirty-three months in prison to be followed by the maximum term of supervised release for a class D felony, thirty-six months. Hager did his time in prison, but he violated conditions of his supervised release about thirteen months into his term. The district court’s options for dealing with Hag-er’s supervised release violation included the following. First, under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2) the court could have chosen to “modify ... or enlarge the conditions” of his supervised release. (The term of Hag-er’s supervised release could not have been extended under § 3583(e)(2) because he had already received the thirty-six month maximum.) Second, the court could have revoked Hager’s supervised release and imposed a term of imprisonment of up to two years under § 3583(e)(3). When a defendant is “required to serve a term of imprisonment” for his supervised release violation, § 3583(h) allows the imposition of a new term of supervised release to follow the prison time. The new term of supervised release cannot exceed the term authorized for the underlying offense, less any prison time imposed upon revocation of the original term of supervision. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(h).
*140The district court chose the second option. The court revoked Hager’s supervised release and sentenced him to six months of home confinement “with a total lockdown,” except for appointments related to matters such as supervision or medical needs. In addition, the court ordered that Hager’s term of home confinement be followed by a new, thirty-month term of supervised release. This disposition shows that the district court considered home confinement to be the equivalent of imprisonment; otherwise, the court could not have imposed a new term of supervised release.
Hager served the six months of home confinement and then began serving his new term of supervised release. He stumbled once again, however, violating conditions of his supervision. This time, the court sentenced Hager to twenty-four months’ imprisonment, the maximum prison term available for a violation of supervised release when the underlying offense is a class D felony. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3). Hager asked the district court to give him credit for the six months he had served in home confinement for his first supervised release violation because the court had deemed that confinement to be imprisonment.* The district court denied the credit, holding on this occasion that home confinement does not equal incarceration. The majority is wrong, I believe, to affirm the district court.
The majority holds that for purposes of § 3583(e)(3) — the subsection under which Hager was sent to prison for two years for violating his new term of supervised release — home confinement is not incarceration but is “a condition of supervised release.” Ante at 137. For that reason, the majority will not allow the time Hager spent in home confinement to be deducted from the prison term he received under § 3583(e)(3) for violating conditions of supervision. This is okay, according to the majority, even though the district court treated the same home confinement as incarceration on an earlier occasion in order to assign Hager a new term of supervised release under § 3583(h), another subsection of the same statute. The majority brushes off the inconsistency, stating that “Just because the incidents of home confinement and incarceration may be the same under § 3583(h), it does not follow that the six months Hager spent on home confinement constitutes imprisonment under § 3583(e)(3).” Ante at 138.
The majority’s inconsistent approach to whether imprisonment includes home confinement cannot be justified. First, the majority violates a fundamental rule of statutory construction: a statutory term should be given a consistent meaning throughout a statute. Brown v. Gardner, 513 U.S. 115, 118, 115 S.Ct. 552, 130 L.Ed.2d 462 (1994). Statutes, in other words, should be read “as harmonious texts,” Leaf Tobacco Exporters Ass’n v. Block, 749 F.2d 1106, 1115 (4th Cir.1984), and imprisonment should therefore mean the same thing throughout § 3583. Second, the majority’s inconsistent reading of subsections (h) and (e)(3) of § 3583 results in unfair punishment for Hager. He is dealt all of the disadvantages of treating *141home confinement like imprisonment, but he is denied any of the benefits. When Hager violated his supervised release the first time, the district court equated home confinement with imprisonment, which allowed the court to invoke § 3583(h) and give Hager a new thirty-month term of supervised release following his six months of home confinement. Again, § 3583(h) was only available because the district court had revoked supervised release and imposed a term of imprisonment. If home confinement had simply been a stricter condition of supervised release, as the majority holds it is today for purposes of § 3583(e)(3), Hager could not have received a new term of supervised release under § 3583(h). Nor could his original term of supervised release have been extended under § 3583(e)(2) because he had already been given the maximum supervision term for a class D felony. Rather, the six months in home confinement would have been credited against his original term of supervised release. That, of course, did not happen because home confinement meant imprisonment back when Hager violated his original term of supervised release. Later, when Hager was sentenced to two years in prison for violating his new term of supervised release, the meaning of home confinement changed: it was no longer the equivalent of imprisonment. This inconsistent approach, which the majority endorses, unjustly denies Hager credit against his prison term.
In sum, the majority fails to require consistency throughout § 3583 on the question whether imprisonment includes home confinement. That failure is unfair to Hager, and it is unsound statutory construction. Because Hager should be allowed six months’ credit against his prison term, I respectfully dissent.

 Hager sought the credit on the ground that prison sentences following multiple revocations of supervised release should be aggregated in calculating the total prison time that may be imposed under § 3583(e)(3) in connection with one underlying offense. Although the majority does not reach the aggregation question, I agree that aggregation is required. To hold otherwise "would permit an endless cycle of consecutive terms of imprisonment and supervised release based on a single underlying offense, a result that Congress gave no indication whatsoever of intending.” United States v. Merced, 263 F.3d 34, 37 (2d Cir.2001).