U.S.A. v. Bass, 00-2540

• Decision Date: 01 December 2000
• Docket Number: No. 00-2540,00-2540
• Parties: (7th Cir. 2000) United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Helen Bass, Defendant-Appellant,
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 536

233 F.3d 536 (7th Cir. 2000)

United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Helen Bass, Defendant-Appellant,

No. 00-2540

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Argued September 8, 2000

Decided December 1, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. No. 00-CR-30020--William D. Stiehl, Chief Judge.

Before Flaum, Chief Judge, and Posner and Rovner, Circuit Judges.

Posner, Circuit Judge.

This appeal from a sentence for violation of conditions of supervised release presents a novel question under the federal sentencing guidelines. In December of last year the federal district court in St. Louis sentenced Helen Bass for bank fraud upon her plea of guilty. The sentence, as stated in the form document entitled "Judgment in a Criminal Case," was as follows: "The defendant is sentenced to a one (1) day imprisonment with credit given for time served. The defendant is placed on a term of six (6) months home confinement. The defendant is released to begin her term of home confinement and upon completion the defendant is to begin her term of five (5) years supervised release." The sentencing guidelines provide that for a Class B felony, which Bass's offense was, a sentence of supervised release with home confinement substituted for imprisonment is proper only if the defendant is sentenced to at least one month's imprisonment. U.S.S.G. sec. 5C1.1(c)(2). But without objection by the government the sentencing judge departed downward from one month to one day. In exercising such lenience the judge was hoping that Bass, who was employed, would be able to repay the $31,000 that she had stolen from the bank; home confinement would permit her to work during the day. See U.S.S.G. sec. 5F1.2 Background Note ("in the usual case, the Commission assumes that a condition requiring that the defendant seek and maintain gainful employment will be imposed when home detention is ordered"). The maximum period of supervised release for a Class B felony is five years. 18 U.S.C. sec. 3583(b)(1).

Although Bass worked in St. Louis, she lived across the Mississippi River, in Belleville, in the Southern District of Illinois. Two months after sentencing Bass, and thus during her period of home confinement, the sentencing judge transferred jurisdiction over her case to the Southern District of Illinois pursuant to 18 U.S.C. sec. 3605. This section provides that a defendant who is on supervised release may be transferred to another district, and the transfer gives the judge in that district the same powers as the original sentencing judge. The transfer order states that the period of the defendant's supervised release runs from December 10, 1999, the date of Bass's sentencing, to December 9, 2004. Bass did not object to the transfer.

In May, the probation office for the southern district filed a petition with that court seeking to revoke Bass's supervised release on the ground that she had violated its conditions, for example by not returning home immediately after work as the home-confinement portion of her sentence, still in force, required. After a hearing, Judge Stiehl revoked Bass's supervised release and sentenced her to six months in prison followed by 54 months of supervised release. The sentence was imposed on June 6, 2000, by which time Bass was no longer in home confinement, although the violations of the conditions of supervised release that were the basis for the revocation had occurred while she was.

The ground of the appeal is that the judge in Missouri had no jurisdiction to transfer the case to another district, and therefore that Judge Stiehl acted beyond his power when he revoked Bass's supervised release. Since the transfer statute merely regulates...