United States v. Mont
| Decision Date | 15 February 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 17-3732,17-3732 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JASON J. MONT, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION
File Name: 18a0078n.06
ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO
Before: MOORE, COOK, and McKEAGUE, Circuit Judges.
KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge. Defendant-Appellant Jason Mont appeals the district court's revocation of his term of supervised release, arguing that the district court lacked jurisdiction to impose the revocation because his term of supervised release had already expired. Because binding precedent instead makes clear that Mont's term of supervised release was paused by his imprisonment in connection with a new state conviction, we conclude that the district court did indeed have jurisdiction and thus AFFIRM.
Because Mont's challenge hinges on a few key dates, two sections of statutory text, and one case, we review the facts here only briefly. In December 2005, Mont was convicted of violating 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), 846, and 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and sentenced to 120 months of imprisonment to be followed by five years of supervised release. R. 37 (2005 Crim. J. at 1-3) (Page ID #109-11). He appears to have been released from prison on March 6, 2012. See R. 90 (Supervision Report at 1) (Page ID #415); see also Inmate Locator, FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS, https://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/ (listing a release date of "03/06/2012" after a search for "Jason J. Mont"); Appellant's Br. at 4; Appellee's Br. at 4. His release from prison started the clock ticking on his five years of supervised release, see 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e)—a countdown slated to end on March 6, 2017.1
Unfortunately, that five-year period was not a smooth one for Mont. In January 2016, his probation officer submitted to the district court a violation report alleging that Mont had failed to comply with the terms of his supervised release in two ways: (1) by testing positive during two drug tests for controlled substances (Oxycodone and Oxymorphone) for which he lacked a prescription, and (2) by using some "unknown" liquid to try to pass two subsequent drug tests. R. 89 (First Violation Report at 1) (Page ID #411). Moreover, Mont's probation officer noted, Mont had been "secretly indicted by the Mahoning County Grand Jury on two counts of Trafficking in Marijuana" back in March 2015. Id. At the time of the probation officer's report, those state charges were still pending, and a jury trial was scheduled for March 14, 2016. Id. at 1-2 (Page ID #411-12). In light of the pending state-court case, the district judge declined to issue a warrant, and instead asked that the court "be notified of the resolution of the state charges." Id. at 4 (Page ID #414).
Mont's state jury trial ended up being postponed. R. 90 (Supervision Report at 1) (Page ID #415). Nevertheless, as his probation officer reported, Mont was arrested on June 1, 2016, as a result of a new secret indictment from Mahoning County, this one for "five counts of Trafficking in Cocaine." Id. He was "incarcerated in the Mahoning County Jail," id. at 2 (Page ID #416), and, as he concedes, remained in state custody going forward, see R. 100 (Second Violation Report at 2) (Page ID #455); see also Appellant's Br. at 6.2
In October 2016, Mont entered into a plea agreement with the Mahoning County prosecutors, pleaded guilty to some of his state court charges in exchange for a predetermined six-year sentence, R. 95-1 (Page ID #430-38), and filed a written admission in federal court acknowledging that he had violated the terms of his supervised release and requesting a hearing on the matter, R. 92 (Def.'s Admission) (Page ID #419). But Mont had not yet been officially sentenced for the new, state-court convictions. Though the district court initially set a November 2016 date for Mont's supervised-release-violation hearing, a flurry of continuances followed in both state and federal court. See, e.g., R. 94 (Gov't's Mot. for Continuance at 1) (Page ID #424). Ultimately, on March 21, 2017, Mont was sentenced instate court to a total of six years' imprisonment, encompassing multiple concurrent terms stemming from the various state charges on which he had been indicted and arrested. See R. 100 (Second Violation Report at 1) (Page ID #454). Importantly, Mont's state-court sentencing judge credited the roughly ten months that Mont had already been incarcerated pending a disposition as time served. See State v. Mont, Judgment, No. 16-CR-555, at 2 (Mahoning Cty. Ct. Com. Pl. Mar. 23, 2017); State v. Mont, Judgment, No. 15-CR-291, at 2 (Mahoning Cty. Ct. Com. Pl. Mar. 23, 2017).3
On March 30, 2017—now more than three weeks after Mont's term of supervised release had initially been set to expire—Mont's probation officer updated the district court regarding Mont's state-court convictions and sentences. R. 100 (Second Violation Report at 1) (Page ID #454) (same). The district court ordered the issuance of a warrant that same day, id. at 4 (Page ID #457); R. 101 (Arrest Warrant at 1) (Page ID #458), and set a supervised-release-violation hearing for June 28, 2017, R. 103 (Pet. for Writ of Habeas Corpus ad Prosequendum at 1) (Page ID #462).
Two days before that hearing, Mont's counsel filed a memorandum contending that "Mont's period of supervised release expired on March 6, 2017," and thus disputing the district court's jurisdiction to adjudicate his otherwise-admitted violation. R. 107 (Def.'s Violation Hr'g Mem. at 2) (Page ID #473). At the hearing, the district court addressed Mont's challenge and"conclude[d] that [it did], in fact, have jurisdiction over this matter." See R. 116 (Violation Hr'g Tr. at 9) (Page ID #492). In explaining its conclusion, the district court first stated that it had "give[n] notice by way of a summons on November 1st of 2016 setting this for a supervised release violation hearing for November 9th of 2016." Id. at 7 (Page ID #490). The district court then made reference to 18 U.S.C. § 3583(i), stating that under that provision "a Court retains the power to impose a sanction for a supervised release violation beyond the expiration of the term of supervised release for any period reasonably necessary for the adjudication of matters arising from its expiration."4 Id. at 8-9 (Page ID #491-92). Though the district court acknowledged that, "if all things went as they should have gone, supervision would have expired on March 7th, 2017," the district court reasoned that the extra "time was, in fact, reasonably necessary because it was the actions of the defendant that caused the various extensions of time of having the supervised release violation hearing." Id. at 9 (Page ID #492).
The district court proceeded to sentence Mont to 42 months of imprisonment, to be served consecutively to Mont's imprisonment for his state-court convictions. Id. at 17 (Page ID #500). Mont timely appealed on the jurisdictional question.
"We review de novo [a] district court's . . . determination that it had jurisdiction to revoke [a defendant's] supervised release." United States v. Cross, 846 F.3d 188, 190 (6th Cir. 2017).
The math in this case is simple: Mont's supervised-release clock was initially set at five years. If it ticked its way down inexorably, then time would have expired on March 6, 2017, and the district court would have lacked jurisdiction to impose a violation at any later date.
But the clock's countdown was not inexorable. Two statutory provisions explain (1) how time could have been extended and (2) how the clock could have been paused. First, "[t]he power of the court to revoke a term of supervised release . . . extends beyond the expiration of the term of supervised release for any period reasonably necessary for the adjudication of matters arising before its expiration if, before its expiration, a warrant or summons has been issued on the basis of an allegation of such a violation." 18 U.S.C. § 3583(i) (emphases added). That is how time could have been extended. See United States v. Ossa-Gallegos, 491 F.3d 537, 543 n.5 (6th Cir. 2007) (en banc). Second, while a "term of supervised release commences on the day the person is released from imprisonment," that term "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) (emphases added). That is how the clock could have been paused.
This second, clock-pausing provision presents an interpretive riddle that we took on in United States v. Goins, 516 F.3d 416 (6th Cir. 2008): does thirty days or more of pretrial detention for a charge that results in (and is credited to) a conviction count as "imprisonment in connection with" that conviction? If so, we would understand a defendant's supervised-release clock as having been stopped during any days that defendant spent incarcerated after an indictment, at least so long as (1) that indictment resulted in a conviction and (2) that incarceration was credited as time served for the conviction. And that, in Goins, is what we held: "that [1] when a defendant is held for thirty days or longer in pretrial detention, and [2] he is later convicted for the offense for which he was held, and [3] 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." Id. at 417. And we explicitly rejected any "temporal limitations" for this rule, finding none in the statute's text and thus acknowledging that our rule might "require a 'backward-looking analysis'" at times. Id. at 422 (quoting United States v. Morales-Alejo, 193 F.3d...
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