Court Opinion

ID: 9481807
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:32:26.660126+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:35.334046
License: Public Domain

BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I concur in the denial of credit for Randall’s stay at Second Genesis from his arrest on January 15, 1986, to his sentencing on July 31, 1986. I agree that United States v. Insley, 927 F.2d 185 (4th Cir.1991), governs this aspect of Randall’s claim. Insley is consistent with our precedents. In a variety of situations — release on bail, probation, and parole — we have denied credit for “street time” when the defendant was not incarcerated in a penal institution. See, e.g., Hall v. Bostic, 529 F.2d 990 (4th Cir.1975).
I dissent from the court’s conclusion that Randall’s sentence did not commence to run on July 31, 1986, when he was sentenced. By implication the court — erroneously, I believe — holds that his sentence began to run on October 1, 1986.
On July 31, 1986, the district court convened a hearing to consider Randall’s request that he be sentenced on his plea of guilty, which he had entered the previous May. Again, the government opposed sentencing and sought another continuance until after Randall testified in a codefend-ant’s trial, which had been rescheduled from July to the middle of September. The court denied the government’s motion for a continuance and sentenced Randall to 12 years in prison. The question then arose about what to do with him pending his appearance as a witness. His attorney urged the court to accept a government suggestion that he remain at Second Genesis until January 1, 1987, to complete his therapy. The court declined, and this colloquy followed:
[Defense Attorney]: My suggestion, then, Your Honor, is perhaps October 1st. There are two reasons for that, I suggest. First, it is a little more time. Also, I think it’s important where Mr. Randall is incarcerated. If he is incarcerated in two weeks, say, in Lexington, then [the prosecutor] will bring him back to this area for his testimony, and then he will spend two or three or four weeks in the Baltimore City Jail. I don’t think that that is going to do him any good. If the Court can give him until October 1st, then he can come from the program to testify at the trial.
[The Court]: I am not willing to do that. That will permit him to be in Sec*527ond Genesis at the time of the trial in September.
[Prosecutor]: Right.
* * * * * *
[The Court]: I will set a turn-in date of Wednesday, October 1st, at 10:00 a.m. The condition of this is that he remain in Second Genesis during this interim period, in that program.
Mr. Randall, as you heard us saying before, although we were not talking directly to you, I am putting you out into Second Genesis until you surrender into federal custody on October 1st. During that time, if you should disappear from the Second Genesis program or fail to appear as required on October 1st, Mr. Randall, the law calls for me to impose a fine of up to $25,000 or imprisonment of not more than ten years or both.
This arrangement met the government’s requirement to have him available as a witness, and it enabled Randall to continue his therapy. The colloquy between the court and counsel illuminates the court’s reasoning, but it is the court’s orders we review — not the colloquy — to ascertain Randall’s status as a convicted person.
Randall’s status is clearly set forth in two orders that the district court entered on July 31, 1986. The first order states that Randall “is hereby committed to the custody of the Attorney General or his authorized representative for imprisonment for a period of twelve (12) years.” Also, in this order, the court recommended “that the place of confinement be one that will treat his drug problem.” This recommendation is consistent with the court’s decision to commit Randall to Second Genesis as a place of detention rather than jail. The court did not rescind this commitment to the Attorney General, nor did it stay the execution of sentence.
The second order entered on July 31, 1986, implemented the first. It ordered Randall to surrender at his expense at a prison to be designated in writing by the United States Marshal on the date given in the notice. If the marshal gave no notice, Randall was directed to surrender at the marshal’s office in the United States Courthouse, Baltimore, on October 1, 1986. In the meantime, Randall was detained at Second Genesis 24 hours a day awaiting his appearance as a witness and instructions from the marshal about transportation to prison.
The question in this aspect of the case is when did Randall’s sentence commence to run? I believe the answer to this question is found in the second paragraph of 18 U.S.C. § 3568, which provides:
If any [person convicted of an offense] shall be committed to a jail or other place of detention to await transportation to the place at which his sentence is to be served, his sentence shall commence to run from the date on which he is received at such jail or other place of detention.
It is quite evident that Randall satisfies all the requirements of this statutory provision. He was a person convicted of an offense. He was subject to directions from the United States Marshal about transportation to prison. Pending these directions he was confined 24 hours a day at Second Genesis. Second Genesis is not a jail, but it is an “other place of detention.”
The district court stated that were it not for United States v. Insley, 927 F.2d 185 (4th Cir.1991), it would grant relief. It construed Insley as drawing a bright line denying credit unless the defendant is confined in jail. But this gloss on Insley is inapplicable with respect to Randall’s status after sentencing. Insley construed 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b), a statute that does not have a counterpart to the second paragraph of § 3568 dealing with commitment to a “jail or other place of detention” pending transportation to prison. The defendant in Insley was free on bond with relatively slight restrictions. She was not confined 24 hours a day at a “place of detention.” Insley furnishes no precedent for determining when Randall’s sentence began to run while he awaited transportation.
I cannot accept the notion that Randall should be deprived of the provisions of the second paragraph of § 3568 because he, as well as the court and government, believed Second Genesis was the preferred place of detention pending his appearance as a witness and transportation to prison. The *528statute contains no such exception. The statute speaks in unequivocal terms, and our court has no mandate to engraft an exception to a provision that Congress has enacted to define the commencement of a sentence of imprisonment.
Sixty days elapsed from the date Randall was received at Second Genesis after sentencing on July 31, 1986, until his departure on September 29 to travel, at his parents’ expense, to the Ashland Correctional Institution where he surrendered on October 1, 1986, in accordance with the directions he received from the United States Marshal. Prison officials certified to the district court that Randall is projected for release on September 27, 1991. Dissenting, I would hold that Randall’s projected release date should be advanced 60 days to July 29, 1991.