IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
_____________________
No. 96-10697
_____________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
TERRY LEE LYNCH,
Defendant-Appellant.
_________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Texas
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May 21, 1997
Before POLITZ, Chief Judge, and KING, Circuit Judge, and FOLSOM,*
District Judge.
KING, Circuit Judge:
This case presents the issue of when the term of supervised
release begins for a defendant whose offense was committed
between October 27, 1986, the effective date of the Anti-Drug
Abuse Act of 1986, and November 1, 1987, the effective date of
the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. Terry Lee Lynch is such a
defendant, and the district court determined that he was still
within his term of supervised release when he engaged in conduct
that violated the conditions of his supervised release. The
district court revoked Lynch’s supervised release and sentenced
*
District Judge of the Eastern District of Texas, sitting
by designation.
him to nine months imprisonment. Lynch appeals, arguing that the
district court did not have jurisdiction to impose an additional
sentence because, under the appropriate standard for calculating
his supervised release term, his term had expired when he engaged
in the relevant conduct. We agree, and thus we reverse and
remand with instructions to vacate the district court’s order
revoking Lynch’s supervised release and to dismiss the revocation
petition with prejudice.
I. BACKGROUND
The facts of this case are undisputed. On or about May 21,
1987, Lynch committed the offense of knowingly distributing
cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). He was sentenced
on November 6, 1987, to five years of imprisonment without
eligibility for parole1 and four years of supervised release. At
this time, 18 U.S.C. §§ 4161-4164 (repealed) applied, authorizing
“good time” and providing for mandatory release upon the accrual
of sufficient good time credit to discharge the sentence. As a
result of accrued good time, Lynch was released from the
Volunteers of America halfway house on December 21, 1990, instead
of April 2, 1992, the date on which he was originally scheduled
to be released.
Between December 21, 1990, and April 2, 1992, Lynch was
under the supervision of a probation officer on behalf of the
1
Lynch was sentenced without eligibility for parole
because his case was governed by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986,
which replaced most forms of parole with a system of supervised
release. See Gozlon-Peretz v. United States, 498 U.S. 395
(1991).
2
U.S. Parole Commission. The probation office calculated April 2,
1992, as the date Lynch’s supervised release began. Thus, the
probation office considered December 21, 1990, through April 2,
1992, as a period of mandatory release supervision or “regular”
parole and April 2, 1992, through April 2, 1996, as the period of
supervised release.
On March 7, 1996, Lynch’s probation officer filed a petition
to revoke his supervised release. The petition alleged that
Lynch had violated the conditions of his release in January and
February 1996 by testing positive for drugs, failing to submit
urine samples, and leaving the residential treatment facility in
which he was placed. Lynch pleaded not true to the allegations.
Lynch also challenged the district court’s jurisdiction to revoke
his supervised release on the basis that his term of supervised
release expired in 1994, four years after he was released from
custody. The government responded that his term of supervised
release did not end until April of 1996, four years after his
originally scheduled release date. The district court agreed
with the government, determined that the Lynch had violated the
terms of the supervised release, and sentenced Lynch to nine
months imprisonment. Lynch made a motion for new trial,
reasserting the jurisdiction argument, and the district court
denied the motion. Lynch has timely appealed.
II. DISCUSSION
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We review the issue of the district court’s jurisdiction de
novo. In re United States Abatement Corp., 39 F.3d 563, 566 (5th
Cir. 1994).
In 1984, in the Sentencing Reform Act (“SRA”), 18 U.S.C.
§§ 3551 et seq., Congress undertook a major reform of the federal
sentencing scheme, one of the goals of which was to replace most
forms of parole with a new system of supervised release. Gozlon-
Peretz v. United States, 498 U.S. 395, 400 (1991). Congress
delayed the effective date of these supervised release provisions
until November 1, 1987, to ensure time for orderly
implementation. Id. at 397. However, on October 27, 1986,
Congress enacted the Anti-Drug Abuse Act (“ADAA”), which mandates
terms of supervised release for certain drug offenses. 21 U.S.C.
§ 841(b)(1)(C).
Thus, the ADAA mandated certain terms of supervised release
beginning on October 27, 1986, but the procedures for
administering supervised release found in the SRA did not become
effective until November 1, 1987. This one-year gap in the
effective dates of these statutes created a conflict of
interpretation among the courts of appeals as to whether the
ADAA’s supervised release provisions applied to offenses
committed during this window period. Gozlon-Peretz, 498 U.S. at
397. The Supreme Court resolved this issue in Gozlon-Peretz,
holding that “for offenses committed in the interim period
between October 27, 1986, and November 1, 1987, supervised
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release applies for all drug offenses in the categories specified
by [the] ADAA.” Id. at 409.
Gozlon-Peretz did not, however, resolve the question
presented by the case at bar: does the time period for
supervised release begin on the date the prisoner is released or
on the date the prisoner would have been released if the time
served had not been reduced? Lynch argues that according to the
plain language of the applicable portion of the SRA, “[t]he term
of supervised release commences on the day the person is released
from imprisonment.” 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e). The government argues
that during the time between Lynch’s release (December 21, 1990)
and the end of the actual five years to which he was sentenced
(April 2, 1992), Lynch was on “regular” parole.2 According to
the law prior to the SRA, “special” parole did not begin until
“regular” parole ended. The government contends that because
supervised release is merely a substitute for “special” parole,
supervised release does not begin until “regular” parole ends.
Under this theory, Lynch’s supervised release did not begin until
April 2, 1992 (the date the actual five-year term expired), and
ran for four years; therefore, when Lynch committed the acts the
district court found violated the terms of his supervised
release, Lynch was still in supervised release status.
2
18 U.S.C. § 4164 (repealed): “A prisoner having served
his term or terms less good-time deductions shall, upon release,
be deemed as if released on parole until the expiration of the
maximum term or terms for which he was sentenced less one hundred
and eighty days.”
5
While the Fifth Circuit has not addressed this precise
issue, the Tenth Circuit recently did in United States v. Reider,
103 F.3d 99 (10th Cir. 1996). Reider involved a defendant whose
offense occurred during the window period, and the court was
faced with the exact issue we face in this case, “namely, the
time when supervised release begins.” Id. at 102. The
government made the same argument in Reider as it does here --
that the term of supervised release did not begin until the
actual time when the sentence was scheduled to expire, even
though the defendant was released early. Id. The court rejected
this argument: “The difficulty with the government’s position is
that it is inconsistent with the straightforward language of the
statute that requires supervised release to begin when the
‘person is released from imprisonment.’” Id. (quoting 18 U.S.C.
§ 3624(e)). The court noted that because application of the
statutory language in this case “is clear, direct[,] requires no
interpretation,” and does not bring about an absurd result, “we
are bound by the terms of the statute.” Id. at 103. Thus, the
defendant’s term of supervised release began when he was released
and expired before the relevant conduct occurred, meaning the
district court had no jurisdiction to punish that conduct on the
basis that it violated the terms of his supervised release. Id.
We agree with the Tenth Circuit that the plain language of
the statute compels the result that the term of supervised
release begins upon the defendant’s release from imprisonment.
We hold that for offenses committed during the window period
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between October 27, 1986, and November 1, 1987, the term of
supervised release begins on the date the defendant is released
from imprisonment, not the date the sentence would have expired
without early release.
Applying that holding to this case, Lynch’s period of
supervised release began on December 21, 1990, when he was
released from Volunteers of America halfway house, and expired
four years later in 1994. When the conduct alleged in the
revocation petition occurred in 1996, Lynch was well past this
expiration date and thus was not in violation of his supervised
release. Therefore, the district court had no jurisdiction to
punish Lynch for this conduct on the basis that it violated the
terms of his supervised release.
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we REVERSE and REMAND WITH
INSTRUCTIONS to VACATE the order revoking Lynch’s supervised
release and to DISMISS the revocation petition with prejudice.
7