USA v. Cade, 00-30026
| Decision Date | 20 December 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-30026,00-30026 |
| Citation | 236 F.3d 463 |
| Parties | (9th Cir. 2000) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DOUGLAS KEITH CADE, Defendant-Appellant |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Shaun S. McCrea, McCrea, P.C., Eugene, Oregon, for the defendant-appellant.
Kirk A. Engdall, Assistant United States Attorney, Eugene, Oregon, for the plaintiff-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon Michael R. Hogan, Chief District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CR-95-60098-HO
Before: Robert R. Beezer, Pamela Ann Rymer, and Susan P. Graber, Circuit Judges.
Defendant Douglas Keith Cade challenges the length of the supervised release component of his sentence. We affirm.
Defendant pleaded guilty to a charge of bank embezzlement, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 656, a Class B felony. On September 19, 1996, the district court sentenced him to a split sentence of four months' incarceration and four months in a community confinement center, plus 60 months' supervised release. Defendant served the incarceration portion of the sentence and began supervised release on or about May 5, 1997.
On April 7, 1999, the district court issued an order compelling Defendant to show cause why his term of supervised release should not be revoked. On May 5, 1999, Defendant admitted to having violated the conditions of his supervised release. The court revoked his term of supervised release and sentenced him to three months' incarceration plus 36 months' supervised release.
Defendant served this additional incarceration time and began supervised release again. Again, he did not succeed. On August 27, 1999, the district court ordered Defendant to show cause why his supervised release should not be revoked. On October 5, 1999, Defendant admitted that he had violated one of the conditions of supervised release. The court revoked Defendant's second term of supervised release and sentenced him to nine months' incarceration and 51 months' supervised release.
Defendant's lawyer objected to the 51-month term of supervised release. The court invited a motion for reconsideration and held a hearing on the motion on January 4, 2000. On January 6, 2000, the court entered an amended judgment reducing the term of supervised release to 48 months. As amended, Defendant's sentence included a nine-month term of incarceration and a 48-month term of supervised release. Defendant appeals that sentence, arguing that the trial court erred by not crediting against his latest term of supervised release (1) time served in incarceration on his first sentence and (2) time served successfully on supervised release.
We review de novo the legality of a sentence. United States v. Jackson, 176 F.3d 1175, 1176 (9th Cir. 1999) (per curiam). Our review of the district court's application of the supervised release statute is also de novo. United States v. Lomayaoma, 86 F.3d 142, 146 (9th Cir. 1996).
Three statutes provide the basis for Defendant's initial sentence. First, 18 U.S.C. 656 defines the elements of embezzlement and authorizes a court to impose a prison sentence of up to 30 years. Second, 18 U.S.C. 3559(a)(2) classifies a violation of 18 U.S.C. 656 as a Class B felony, because 656 permits a prison sentence that exceeds 25 years. Third, 18 U.S.C. 3583(a) authorizes a court to impose a term of supervised release in addition to a term of incarceration. Title 18 U.S.C. 3583(b)(1) establishes that five years is the maximum initial term of supervised release that may be imposed for a Class B felony.
Title 18 U.S.C. 3583(e)(3) and (h) govern the sentencing process upon revocation of supervised release. Subsection (e)(3) provides that, upon revocation, a court may
require the defendant to serve in prison all or part of the term of supervised release authorized by statute for the offense that resulted in such term of super vised release without credit for time previously served on postrelease supervision, if the court . . . finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant violated a condition of supervised release, except that a defendant whose term is revoked under this paragraph may not be required to serve . . . more than 3 years in prison if such offense is a class B felony . . . [.]
Subsection (h) permits a court to include an additional term of supervised release as part of a sentence imposed upon revocation and establishes the maximum length of such term:
When a term of supervised release is revoked and the defendant is required to serve a term of imprisonment that is less than the maximum term of imprisonment authorized under subsection (e)(3), the court may include a requirement that the defendant be placed on a term of supervised release after imprisonment. The length of such a term of supervised release shall not exceed the term of supervised release authorized by statute for the offense that resulted in the original term of supervised release, less any term of imprisonment that was imposed upon revocation of supervised release.
In sum, if a defendant convicted of a Class B felony violates a condition of supervised release, the relevant statutes permit the district court to revoke the defendant's supervised release and require the defendant to serve up to three years in prison. If the court imposes a term of imprisonment that is less than three years, however, it also may require the defendant to serve an additional term of supervised release that cannot exceed five years (the maximum term authorized by 3583(b)(1) for Class B felonies) minus the length of any term of imprisonment imposed upon revocation of supervised release. As provided by 3583(e)(3), a defendant is not entitled to credit against the revocation sentence for time served on supervised release before revocation. Thus, although the statute imposes a five-year maximum on the length of any discrete term of supervised release that might be imposed on a defendant who was convicted of a Class B felony, it neither limits the number of terms of supervised release that a defendant can be ordered to serve as a result of violating conditions of release, nor places a cap on the aggregate amount of time on supervised release that a defendant might serve because of repeated violations of conditions of release.
The lack of a cap on the total amount of time that a defendant may spend on supervised release as a result of violations of the conditions of release is consistent with the congressional policy underlying the supervised release statute. As the Supreme Court recently observed:
The congressional policy in providing for a term of supervised release after incarceration is to improve the odds of a successful transition from the prison to liberty. The Senate Report was quite explicit about this, stating that the goal of supervised release is "to ease the defendant's transition into the community after the service of a long prison term for a particularly serious offense, or to provide rehabilitation to a defendant who has spent a fairly short period in prison for punishment or other purposes but still needs supervision and training programs after release." S. Rep. No. 98-225. p. 124 (1983).
Prisoners may, of course, vary in the degree of help needed for successful reintegration. Supervised release departed from the parole system it replaced by giving district courts the freedom to provide post release supervision for those, and only those, who needed it. Congress aimed, then, to use the district courts' discretionary judgment to allocate supervision to those releasees who needed it most. . . . A violation of the terms of supervised release tends to confirm the judgment that help was necessary, and if any prisoner might profit from the decompression stage of supervised release, no prisoner needs it more than one who has already tried liberty and failed.
Johnson v. United States, 120 S. Ct. 1795, 1805 (2000) (citations omitted). By authorizing district courts to impose an additional term of supervised release as part of a revocation sentence, without crediting defendants for time served on the revoked release sentence, Congress ensured that those defendants most in need of help in making the transition to freedom will receive sufficient assistance.
In this case, the court sentenced Defendant to nine months' imprisonment upon revocation of supervised release. Because that period was less than the maximum term of imprisonment (three years), 3583(h) p...
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