U.S. v. Goins

• Citation: 516 F.3d 416
• Decision Date: 13 February 2008
• Docket Number: No. 07-3341.,07-3341.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Roderick GOINS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

516 F.3d 416

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Roderick GOINS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 07-3341.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Submitted: January 29, 2008.

Decided and Filed: February 13, 2008.

ON BRIEF: Debra K. Migdal, Federal Public Defender's Office, Akron, Ohio, for Appellant. Robert J. Patton, Assistant United States Attorney, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.

Before: MERRITT, DAUGHTREY, and MOORE, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge.

In this case we are asked to decide as a matter of first impression whether pretrial detention with respect to an indictment that later yields a conviction tolls the running of a period of supervised release under 18 U.S.C. § 3624. This is a difficult and close case, but today we part ways with the Ninth Circuit and hold that when a defendant is held for thirty days or longer in pretrial detention, and he is later convicted for the offense for which he was held, and his pretrial detention is credited as time served toward his sentence, then the pretrial detention is "in connection with" a conviction and tolls the period of supervised release under § 3624.

I. BACKGROUND

Because Roderick Goins's ("Goins") appeal raises only a legal question, we need simply provide a brief description of the factual and procedural basis for his appeal. As far as this case is concerned, Goins's legal troubles began on January 28, 1997, when the United States charged him in the Western District of Kentucky with bank fraud and loan fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1344, 1014. On February 18, 1997, Goins pleaded guilty, and on May 15, 1997, the district court entered judgment sentencing Goins to one month of imprisonment for every count with terms to run concurrently; the district court also sentenced Goins to five years of supervised release.

After serving his one-month term of imprisonment, Goins requested that the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky transfer his supervision to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio so that he could assist his father with his father's business. Goins's legal troubles, however, followed him to Ohio, and Goins was indicted in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, in October 1998. Rather than face trial, Goins absconded and stopped submitting monthly reports for his supervised release.

With Goins missing and in likely violation of the terms of his supervised release, the Northern District of Ohio requested jurisdiction over Goins's case. In August 2000, the Western District of Kentucky transferred jurisdiction over Goins to the Northern District of Ohio. Although jurisdiction was transferred, not all of the paperwork was sent; therefore, the Northern District of Ohio was apparently unaware that it had jurisdiction and that the Western District of Kentucky had failed to issue an arrest warrant.

While the two district courts were sorting out the jurisdictional situation, Goins continued to run afoul of the law. On December 18, 2000, Goins was arrested in Douglas County, Georgia, and on January 26, 2001, Goins was indicted. The fifteen-count indictment alleged, among other things, that Goins committed first- and second-degree forgery and identity fraud. After being held for sixty-three days, Goins posted bond on February 2, 2001, and was promptly released. Once again, Goins absconded and did not face those charges until January 2004.

Although Goins was apparently quite busy in Georgia, the Northern District of Ohio did not know of Goins's location between November 1998 and July 2002. It was at that point, in July 2002, when two events happened in quick succession. First, on July 6, 2002, Goins's supervised release was scheduled to expire. And second, the Northern District of Ohio and the Western District of Kentucky resolved their jurisdictional morass: on July 24, 2002, the Northern District of Ohio issued a warrant for Goins's arrest for possible violations of his supervised release.

Although he was in custody in Georgia beginning in 2004, Goins was not arrested for his possible supervised release violation until February 5, 2007. On that date, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia transferred custody of Goins to the Northern District of Ohio.

After receiving briefs and hearing argument from both sides, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio concluded that Goins had violated the terms of his supervised release and sentenced him to twenty-four months of imprisonment. At issue at the district-court hearing, and the sole issue before us, was whether the district court had jurisdiction to revoke Goins's supervised release. A court is authorized to revoke supervised release and "order the defendant to serve a term of imprisonment" after the period of supervised release has passed "if, before its expiration, a warrant or summons has been issued on the basis of an allegation of such a violation [of a condition of supervised release]." 18 U.S.C. § 3583(i). Because Goins's supervised release was scheduled to expire on July 6, 2002, and the Northern .District of Ohio did not issue a warrant until July 24, 2002, the Northern District of Ohio did not issue a warrant until 18 days after Goins's supervised release was schedule to expire, and § 3583(i) would appear to deprive the district court of jurisdiction. However, the United States contended that Goins's supervised release did not actually end on July 6, 2002, because of the operation of 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e), which provides; "A term of supervised release does not run during any period in which the person is imprisoned in connection with a conviction for a Federal, State, or local crime unless the imprisonment is for a period of less than 30 consecutive days." 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e). According to the United States, Goins's sixty-three days of pretrial detention for the Georgia offenses tolled Goins's period of supervised release under § 3624(e), thereby making the Northern District of Ohio's warrant timely.

The district court agreed with the government's tolling argument. The district court focused on two factors in making its determination: the length of Goins's detention and the fact that Goins was later convicted in Georgia of the crime for which he was detained. The district court believed that Goins's pretrial detention of sixty-three days triggered the statute:

What's the difference, though, if . . . he's held more than 30 days, and then he makes bond, say on the 40th day, and he's given credit for the 40 days before making bond by the Douglas County court, hasn't he suffered an incarceration for more than 30 days and doesn't the . . . supervised release toll under the statute?

Joint Appendix ("J.A.") at 83 (Mar. 14, 2007, Hr'g Tr. at 14:16-21). In addition, the district court concluded that the pretrial detention was "in connection with" a conviction because Georgia later convicted Goins. For those reasons, the district court concluded that it had jurisdiction to revoke Goins's supervised release; upon finding numerous violations of his supervised-release conditions, the district court sentenced Goins to twenty-four months of imprisonment. Goins filed a timely appeal.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of Review

The parties are in agreement that "[t]he question of whether a district court has jurisdiction to rule upon a petition to revoke a defendant's supervised release after the term of supervised release is alleged to have ended is a question of law that is subject to de novo review." United States v. Sturdivant, No. 98-6256, 1999 WL 1204689, at *2 (6th Cir. Nov.30, 1999) (unpublished). De novo review in this circumstance is consistent with the law of other circuits. See United States v. Jackson, 426 F.3d 301, 304 & n. 3 (5th Cir. 2005); United States v. Morales-Alejo, 193 F.3d 1102, 1104 (9th Cir.1999) ("We review de novo whether the district court had jurisdiction to revoke Morales-Alejo's term of supervised release."); United States v. Morales, 45 F.3d 693, 696 (2d Cir.1995) ("The question before us is whether the district court had jurisdiction to rule upon Morales's alleged violations after his supervised release period was supposed to end. This is a question of law subject to de novo review.").

B. Interpreting 3624

Only the Ninth Circuit has addressed the exact issue of whether pretrial detention counts as "imprisoned in connection with a conviction" and, therefore, tolls the period of supervised release. The Ninth Circuit concluded that pretrial detention did not trigger a tolling of the period of supervised release:

A plain reading of this language [of § 3624(e) ] suggests that there must be an imprisonment resulting from or otherwise triggered by a criminal conviction. Pretrial detention does not fit this definition, because a person in pretrial detention has not yet been convicted and might never be convicted.

Morales-Alejo, 193 F.3d at 1105. As the above-quoted language indicates, the Ninth Circuit's primary ground for its holding was that it believed that the phrase "in connection with a conviction" means that a conviction must occur before any confinement can count as imprisonment. To bolster this view, the Ninth Circuit attempted to distinguish between the words "imprisonment" and "detention," claiming that Congress uses "imprisonment" only "to refer to a penalty or sentence," whereas "`detention' is used to describe a mechanism to insure a defendant's appearance and the safety of the community." Id.

We respectfully decline to adopt the Ninth Circuit's interpretation. When considering the meaning of § 3624(e), we must apply the plain meaning of the statute if the statute is not ambiguous. United States v. Palacios-Suarez, 418 F.3d 692, 697 (6th Cir.2005). The Supreme Court, in United States v. Johnson, 529 U.S. 53, 120 S.Ct. 1114, 146 L.Ed.2d 39 (2000), has previously considered the meaning of the word "release" in § 3624(e), and the Court's approach guides ours. In John...