Court Opinion

ID: 9487073
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:07:38.697504+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:05.142096
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority that the district court’s decision to revoke Webb’s supervised release was within its discretion, and that, as per United States v. Truss, 4 F.3d 437 (6th Cir.1993), the imposition of an additional term of supervised release must be vacated and the matter remanded for resentencing. However, I believe that, under 18 U.S.C. § 3663(g), we are obliged to regard the restitution order as a condition of supervised release. Consequently, it was improper for the sentencing court to revoke the term of supervised release, yet retain the restitution obligation. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from the portion of the majority opinion pertaining to restitution.
As the majority states, § 3663(g) provides that “[i]f such defendant is placed on probation or sentenced to a term of supervised release under this title, any restitution ordered under this section shall be a condition of such probation or supervised release.” The plain and unambiguous meaning of this provision is that where restitution and supervised release are both imposed, the former must be a condition of the latter. The language of this provision is clearly mandatory and leaves no room for discretion.
The majority, however, interprets this section as permitting restitution and supervised release to be imposed independently of each other, such that revocation of one does not affect the other in the least. It characterizes this interpretation, which seems to me to be totally inconsistent with the plain language of the statute, as “a more natural reading of the provision.” Majority Op. at 690.
The majority contends that construing § 3663(g) in accordance with what I regard as its plain and unambiguous meaning would “substantially eviscerate” language in other parts of the statute — namely the phrase “in addition to,” which is found in § 3663(a)(1). See Majority Op. at 690. I find this claim to be insupportable. Section 3663(a)(1) grants a sentencing court the discretion to order restitution “in addition to ... any other penalty authorized by law.” There is no tension or inconsistency between this section and § 3663(g). The two provisions together simply provide that, in addition to other penal*692ties, a court may order a defendant to make restitution, and if a term of supervised release is one of the other penalties, making restitution must be a condition of such release. No part of the statute is “eviscerated” by this straightforward interpretation.
According to Truss, the revocation of a term of supervised release must be understood as a complete revocation, including all of the conditions of the term. 4 F.3d at 441. Insofar as the restitution order was a condition of supervised release, under § 3663(g), it too is destroyed by the revocation.
For these reasons, I would instruct the district court on remand that it is no more free to re-impose the restitution order than it is to re-impose an extended supervised release term. I would hold that on remand, the district court is free to reconsider whether it should revoke the term of supervised release at all. It has a choice of either incarcerating Webb, or of reinstituting or modifying the conditions of the term of supervised release, including restitution. See Truss, 4 F.3d at 438-39. The majority errs by allowing the district court on remand to do both of these things.