United States v. Rondell Hall ( 2023 )

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[PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-10230
____________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
RONDELL HALL,
Defendant-Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Alabama
D.C. Docket No. 1:15-cr-00286-KD-C-1
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 22-10230
Before BRANCH, BRASHER, and ED CARNES, Circuit Judges.
BRASHER, Circuit Judge:
This appeal presents a question of first impression about su-
pervised release and home confinement. The relevant statutes pro-
vide that a district court may impose home confinement with elec-
tronic monitoring in two circumstances. First, a district court may
impose home confinement as a special condition of probation or
supervised release under 18 U.S.C. § 3563(b)(19). Second, a court
may impose home confinement to punish a supervised release vio-
lation under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(4). In both instances, Congress
specified that district courts may order home confinement with
electronic monitoring “only as an alternative to incarceration.” Id.§§ 3563(b)(19), 3583(e)(4). Considering this limitation, the question
for us is whether a district court may sentence a defendant to home
confinement for violating the terms of his supervised release even
if the district court has sentenced the defendant to the statutory
maximum period of imprisonment for that violation. We join the
Fifth Circuit in answering this question “no.” See United States v.
Ferguson, 369 F.3d 847, 852 (5th Cir. 2004).
Rondell Hall, a class C felon, violated the conditions of his
supervised release. After revoking his supervised release, the dis-
trict court sentenced Hall to the statutory maximum of two years’
imprisonment and added one year of home confinement with lo-
cation monitoring. We conclude that Hall’s sentence is incon-
sistent with the limitation that a district court may impose home
confinement “only as an alternative to incarceration.” Because the
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district court sentenced Hall to the statutory maximum term of
two years’ imprisonment, it lacked authority to impose an addi-
tional year of home confinement with electronic monitoring “as an
alternative to incarceration.” We therefore vacate Hall’s sentence
to the extent it imposed a term of home confinement and remand
for resentencing.
I.
The story of how Hall received the sentence at issue in this
appeal begins in 2016, when he pleaded guilty to unlawful posses-
sion of a firearm as a convicted felon, a class C felony. 18 U.S.C. §
922(g)(1). After Hall served fifty-seven months in prison, he began
a three-year term of supervised release. Hall’s supervised release
included the conditions that he: (1) refrain from committing an-
other crime, (2) keep his probation officer apprised of his current
residence, (3) avoid places where people sell or use controlled sub-
stances, and (4) avoid associating with anyone involved in criminal
activity or convicted of a felony. Hall’s supervised release began in
September 2020.
Roughly one year into his term, the district court revoked
Hall’s supervised release because he violated multiple conditions.
Specifically, at the revocation hearing, Hall admitted to changing
his residence without telling his probation officer and frequenting
a place known for illegal drug activity. The district court addition-
ally found by a preponderance of the evidence that Hall violated
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4 Opinion of the Court 22-10230
his conditions by engaging in domestic violence and possessing a
firearm.
In response to these violations, the district court revoked
Hall’s term of supervised release and imposed a modified sentence
under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e). The court noted that the statutory max-
imum term of imprisonment for a class C felony upon revocation
of supervised release is two years. The court sentenced Hall to two
years’ imprisonment—the statutory maximum—followed by a
one-year term of home confinement. The district court made clear
that home confinement would mean that Hall must submit to lo-
cation monitoring and be “restricted to [his] residence at all times,”
except for preapproved activities, like employment, church, or
court appearances.
Hall objected only to the home confinement order, which
the district court noted and overruled. Hall then moved to vacate
the home confinement order. The district court denied Hall’s mo-
tion. Hall timely appealed.
II.
We review de novo the legality of a sentence, including a
sentence imposed pursuant to the revocation of a term of super-
vised release. United States v. Mazarky, 499 F.3d 1246, 1248 (11th
Cir. 2007). We also review issues of statutory interpretation de
novo. Id.USCA11 Case: 22-10230 Document: 33-1 Date Filed: 04/05/2023 Page: 5 of 18
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III.
Sections 3563(b)(19) and 3583(e)(4) both provide that a dis-
trict court may order a defendant to “remain at his place of resi-
dence during nonworking hours” and “be monitored by telephonic
or electronic signaling devices, except that [a condition or order]
under this paragraph may be imposed only as an alternative to in-
carceration.” 18 U.S.C. §§ 3563(b)(19), 3583(e)(4). In light of this
statutory language, the sole question in this appeal is whether the
district court lawfully sentenced Hall to home confinement in ad-
dition to the statutory maximum term of imprisonment for his su-
pervised release violation. Hall argues the court did not, and we
agree.
Our discussion proceeds in three parts. First, we set out the
statutory framework for sentencing upon revocation of a defend-
ant’s supervised release. Second, we determine the ordinary mean-
ing of “as an alternative to incarceration” in Sections 3563(b)(19)
and 3583(e)(4). Third, we address (and dispose of) the govern-
ment’s arguments for why home confinement may be imposed on
top of a statutory maximum sentence of incarceration.
A.
We start with some basics. A district court may impose a
sentence only if a statute authorizes that sentence. See generally 18
U.S.C. § 3551. Accordingly, a sentence cannot exceed the maxi-
mum term authorized by statute. See id. §§ 3581, 3583. And a
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district court cannot impose a sentence in circumstances that a stat-
ute forbids.
Federal law authorizes a category of sentences called “super-
vised release,” “a form of postconfinement monitoring” provided
“to facilitate a transition to community life.” Mont v. United States,
139 S. Ct. 1826, 1833 (2019) (cleaned up). When a district court sen-
tences a defendant to a term of imprisonment, it may include “as a
part of the sentence a requirement that the defendant be placed on
a term of supervised release after imprisonment.” 18 U.S.C. §
3583(a). The district court should include conditions during this
term of supervised release to encourage the defendant to avoid fu-
ture criminal activity. For example, a district court must order as a
condition of supervised release that the defendant “not commit an-
other . . . crime.” Id. § 3583(d). It has the discretion to impose other
conditions, such as “any condition set forth as a discretionary con-
dition of probation in section 3563(b).” Id. Section 3563(b) lists
about twenty potential discretionary conditions, such as working
in community service or refraining from excessive use of alcohol.
See id. § 3563(b).
If a defendant violates a condition of his supervised release,
the district court may revoke the supervised release and impose a
revised sentence. Id. § 3583(e)(3). The revised sentence may in-
clude imprisonment for a term “authorized by statute for the of-
fense that resulted in such term of supervised release,” i.e., the orig-
inal offense. Id. For a defendant convicted of a class C felony, like
Hall, the revised sentence’s term of imprisonment may not exceed
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two years. Id. A district court may also impose a new term of su-
pervised release after the revised term of imprisonment. Id. §
3583(h). That term cannot exceed the original maximum term for
supervised release (here, three years) less the time the defendant is
sentenced to prison upon revocation. Id. § 3583(b)(3), (h). So, if
someone like Hall is sentenced to two years imprisonment, they
can be sentenced to a maximum of one year of supervised release
to follow.
For its part, a sentence of home confinement requires a de-
fendant to “remain at his place of residence during nonworking
hours and, if the court so directs, to have compliance monitored by
telephone or electronic signaling devices.” Id. § 3583(e)(4); see also
id. § 3563(b)(19). Two relevant provisions authorize district courts
to sentence defendants to home confinement. First, as explained
above, when a court sentences a defendant to probation or super-
vised release, it may impose any of the discretionary conditions
listed in Section 3563(b). See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d). Home confine-
ment is one such discretionary condition. Id. § 3563(b)(19). Second,
Section 3583(e) separately authorizes courts to impose a term of
home confinement as punishment when a defendant violates the
conditions of his supervised release. Id. § 3583(e)(4). Importantly,
in both instances, the statute provides that an order for home con-
finement “may be imposed only as an alternative to incarceration.”
Id. §§ 3583(e)(4), 3563(b)(19).
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B.
We now turn to Hall’s arguments. Everyone agrees that,
upon revoking his original term of supervised release, the district
court could sentence Hall to two years of imprisonment (the max-
imum) and one year of supervised release (three years minus the
term of imprisonment). 18 U.S.C. § 3583(b)(3), (e)(3), (h). But Hall
argues that, because the district court sentenced him to the statu-
tory maximum term of incarceration for his violation, the court
erred by imposing one year of home confinement as an additional
punishment for that offense. The government argues that this sen-
tence—the statutory maximum term of imprisonment followed by
one year of home confinement—was not an abuse of the district
court’s discretion.
There are two ways to understand the home confinement
portion of Hall’s sentence. The district court may have imposed a
year of home confinement as punishment for Hall violating the
conditions of his previous supervised release. See id. § 3583(e)(4).
Or the district court may have imposed one year of supervised re-
lease to follow Hall’s two years of incarceration, see id. § 3583(h),
and added home confinement as a special condition to that one-
year term of supervised release, see id. § 3563(b)(19). The district
court cited both statutes in explaining its sentence. Either way, the
statutes that authorize a sentence of home confinement provide
that it is authorized “only as an alternative to incarceration.” Id. §§
3563(b)(19), 3583(e)(4). Accordingly, to resolve Hall’s argument we
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must determine the ordinary meaning of “except [home confine-
ment] may be imposed only as an alternative to incarceration.”
In the government’s view, the phrase is merely hortatory or
suggestive. Specifically, the government asks us to read “only as an
alternative to incarceration” as a directive to sentencing courts to
treat home confinement and incarceration as different things. The
government contends that Congress wanted sentencing courts to
appreciate that home confinement “is not imprisonment itself.”
We cannot agree with this interpretation.
For starters, the government’s reading would give this
phrase no operative effect. Home confinement is the only enumer-
ated condition of probation or supervised release that includes the
caveat “except that a condition under this paragraph may be im-
posed only as an alternative to incarceration.” 18 U.S.C. §
3563(b)(19). It appears in both places where the statute authorizes
home confinement. See id.; id § 3583(e)(4). But it is not the only
supervised release condition with an express limitation on a district
court’s authority to impose it. See 18 U.S.C. § 3563(b)(10) (capping
nights and weekends in custody at “the lesser of one year or the
term of imprisonment authorized for the offense”). Nothing about
the placement of these provisions or the text suggests they are hor-
tatory. And we cannot adopt an interpretation of this phrase that
simply “render[s] it superfluous.” In re Shek, 947 F.3d 770, 776 (11th
Cir. 2020); see also Myers v. TooJay’s Mgmt. Corp., 640 F.3d 1278,
1285 (11th Cir. 2011) (“[A] statute should be construed so that effect
is given to all its provisions, so that no part will be inoperative or
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superfluous, void or insignificant.”) (quoting Corley v. United
States, 556 U.S. 303, 314 (2009)).
The government’s reading also makes very little sense in
light of the statute’s text. The statute does not say that “courts shall
not consider home confinement to be imprisonment.” Instead, the
operative phrase expressly conditions a district court’s authority to
impose a sentence of home confinement. The statute provides that
a district court may impose home confinement “except . . . only as
an alternative to incarceration.” The word “except” means “other
than” or “but.” See Except, Webster’s New World Dictionary (3d.
ed. 1988). The phrase that follows “except” is an exception: courts
may impose home confinement “except . . . only as an alternative
to incarceration.” See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3563(b)(19), 3583(e)(4) (empha-
sis added). See Except, Webster’s New World Dictionary (3d. ed.
1988). The government’s interpretation would read out “except”
altogether. We are confident that, if Congress had wanted to say
only that home confinement does not count as incarceration, it
would have done so with different language.
Finally, we note that there was no reason for Congress to
tell courts to treat imprisonment and home confinement differ-
ently. The Code already makes clear that the twenty-three discre-
tionary conditions that courts may impose during probation or su-
pervised release do not count as incarceration. See 18 U.S.C. §
3563(b); see also id. § 3583(d). Like home confinement, these con-
ditions are allowed as part of probation or supervised release,
which the sentencing statutes treat separately from incarceration.
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See id. § 3563(b); see also United States v. Chavez, 204 F.3d 1305,
1315 (11th Cir. 2000) (holding that “residence in a halfway house is
not tantamount to imprisonment” because it “is a lawful and rea-
sonable part of [a] probationary sentence”). But, unlike home con-
finement, there are no phrases suggesting that these conditions are
“not imprisonment.” The reason: such statements are unnecessary.
Because we disagree with the government, we conclude that
the phrase—“except that a condition under this paragraph may be
imposed only as an alternative to incarceration”—must limit a dis-
trict court’s sentencing authority. To determine what that limita-
tion is, we begin, as always, with the words of the statute. Harris v.
Garner, 216 F.3d 970, 972 (11th Cir. 2000) (en banc). Lacking appli-
cable statutory definitions, “we look to the common usage of
words for their meaning” and may turn to “dictionary definitions
for guidance.” CBS Inc. v. PrimeTime 24 Joint Venture, 245 F.3d
1217, 1222−23 (11th Cir. 2001) (internal quotations omitted). The
word “alternative” is defined as “providing or being a choice be-
tween two or among more than two things,” see Alternative, Web-
ster’s New World Dictionary (3d ed. 1988), or “a choice limited to
one of two or more possibilities, as of things, propositions, or
courses of action, the selection of which precludes any other possi-
bility.” See Alternative, Random House Dictionary (2d ed. 1987).
For example, “[t]he alternative to riding is walking” because “the
selection of [one] precludes” the other. Id. Employing this defini-
tion buttresses our common sense understanding of the term “al-
ternative”: an alternative is a choice between at least two things.
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In light of this definition, we see two possible ways to under-
stand home confinement as an “alternative to incarceration.” This
language could preclude a district court from ordering home con-
finement and incarceration in the same sentence i.e., the selection
of one entirely precludes the other. Or the phrase “alternative to
incarceration” could mean that a district court may impose home
confinement only if it could have imposed incarceration i.e., that
choosing one is an “alternative” to choosing the other.
We can quickly dispose of the first reading. Faced with the
same argument, the First Circuit has concluded that home confine-
ment as an “alternative to incarceration” does not mean the two
cannot be combined in the same sentence. United States v. Mar-
cano, 525 F.3d 72, 73 (1st Cir. 2008). We agree. Because the statute
expressly allows courts to combine incarceration and supervised
release in the same sentence, see, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 3583(h), and ex-
pressly allows home confinement as a condition of supervised re-
lease, id. § 3563(b)(19), courts must be able to combine incarcera-
tion and home confinement in the same sentence. The statute’s use
of the phrase “alternative to incarceration” thus cannot be read to
mean “that the imposition of any period of incarceration pursuant
to § 3583(e)(3) necessarily precludes any home confinement during
the ensuing period of supervised release.” Marcano, 525 F.3d at 73.
Instead, we believe the second reading is the correct one.
That is, a district court imposes home confinement “as an alterna-
tive to incarceration” when the district court has the authority to
impose a term of imprisonment but chooses to impose home
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confinement instead. The upshot is that a district court may con-
sider home confinement as an option only when a term of incar-
ceration is also on the table. Conversely, a district court without
the authority to impose imprisonment cannot impose home con-
finement. If a district court lacks authority to impose a term of im-
prisonment, then a term of home confinement would not be “as an
alternative to incarceration.”
Here, the district court sentenced Hall to the maximum
term of incarceration and an additional year of home confinement.
Based on our understanding of the statute, we agree with Hall that
this sentence is illegal. As the Fifth Circuit has explained, a court
cannot “impose the maximum term of incarceration under subsec-
tion (e)(3) and also impose a period of home confinement under
(e)(4).” Ferguson, 369 F.3d at 851. The reason is that incarceration
beyond the statutory maximum term is not an option available to
a district court. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3581, 3583(e)(3). Because the dis-
trict court did not have the option to impose imprisonment, it
lacked authority to impose home confinement.
Whether we view Hall’s term of home confinement as a spe-
cial condition of supervised release under Section 3563(b)(19) or as
a stand-alone punishment under Section 3583(e)(4), a court may
impose it “only as an alternative to incarceration.” 18 U.S.C. §§
3563(b)(19), 3583(e)(4). The ordinary meaning of these provisions
is that the district court erred by imposing a term of home confine-
ment when it could not have imposed the same term of imprison-
ment.
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C.
The government makes three final arguments against this
common sense reading of the statutory text: (1) our holding, it ar-
gues, is inconsistent with our prior precedent; (2) our decision
would split with the Fourth Circuit’s decision in United States v.
Hager, 288 F.3d 136, 137 (4th Cir. 2002); and (3) the difficulties of
differentiating special conditions of supervised release from home
confinement make our holding impracticable. We explain why
each argument fails in turn.
1.
First, the government argues our plain text reading conflicts
with our prior precedent in United States v. Mangaroo, 504 F.3d
1350, 1354 (11th Cir. 2007). We are not persuaded.
The facts in United States v. Mangaroo bear little resem-
blance to those here. In Mangaroo, the defendants were convicted
of firearm offenses that, by statute, required a minimum term of
incarceration and prohibited probation. Id. at 1353−54. We thus
held that the district court erred in sentencing the defendants to
home confinement—a “condition[] of probation”—because “home
confinement is not incarceration.” Id. at 1354. Unlike the statute in
Mangaroo, Section 3583(e) provides courts with a range of options
for resentencing upon revocation of supervised release, including
incarceration, home confinement, or a combination of the two. 18
U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3), (4). And, of course, we did not address the
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meaning of “alternative” in either Section 3583(e)(4) or Section
3563(b)(19) in Mangaroo.
In any event, our reasoning in Mangaroo aligns with our rea-
soning here. The government emphasizes our conclusion in Man-
garoo that “home confinement is not incarceration.” See Manga-
roo, 504 F.3d 1354. But we agree that “home confinement is not
incarceration.” The whole point is that, under Section 3583(e)(4) or
Section 3563(b)(19), they must be treated as “alternatives” that are
not the same. That is, they are mutually exclusive options where
the selection of imprisonment precludes, in some respects, the se-
lection of home confinement.
2.
Second, the government argues that we are creating a split
with the Fourth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Hager, 288
F.3d 136, 137 (4th Cir. 2002). Again, we disagree. In Hager, the
Fourth Circuit considered whether a defendant should receive
credit against the statutory maximum sentence for a new revoca-
tion for time he served on home confinement when his supervised
release was previously revoked. Id. at 136. The court in Hager
noted that “the word ‘alternative’ does not indicate that home con-
finement and incarceration are equivalents under the statute.” Id.
at 137. And the court held that a previous period of home confine-
ment from a prior revocation does not count as imprisonment for
calculating the statutory maximum sentence that could be imposed
for a new violation of a supervised release. Id. at 139.
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Hager is inapposite for at least two reasons.
First, the court in Hager was answering the inverse of our
question. The language we are interpreting restricts the district
court’s power to impose home confinement, not its authority to
impose incarceration. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3583(e)(3), 3563(b)(19). But
the court in Hager was considering whether the district court could
impose a new term of imprisonment, not a new term of home con-
finement. Hager, 288 F.3d at 139. Hager has nothing to say about a
district court’s ability to impose home confinement. And, con-
versely, our opinion says nothing about when a district court can
impose a term of imprisonment.
Second, Hager is based on a reading of the statute that has
been superseded by an amendment and that we have already disa-
vowed. The court in Hager began by “assum[ing] without deciding
[] that § 3583(e)(3)’s maximum prison term”—here, two years—
“limits the total prison time that may be imposed for multiple vio-
lations of supervised release.” Id. at 137 (emphasis added). Then it
addressed whether a previous sentence to home confinement
should count toward that aggregate limit. Id. at 137−39. Congress
has since amended Section 3583 to clarify that the maximum prison
term a defendant may serve on revocation of supervised release
does not aggregate over revocations; instead, it applies “on any
such revocation.” See Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to
End the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 2003, Pub. L. 108-
21, Title I, § 101, Apr. 30, 2003, 117 Stat. 651 (codified as amended
at 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(3)). As we have explained, this statutory
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change clarified that “upon each revocation of supervised release a
defendant may be sentenced to the felony class limits contained
within § 3583(e)(3) without regard to imprisonment previously
served for revocation of supervised release.” United States v. Cun-
ningham, 800 F.3d 1290, 1293 (11th Cir. 2015). Thus, the question
presented in Hager can no longer arise— because the full statutory
maximum applies to each new revocation, there is no need to de-
cide whether to count previous sentences for home confinement
(or imprisonment) as credit against sentences for future revoca-
tions.
3.
Finally, the government argues that our holding will be dif-
ficult to apply in practice because it is hard to determine whether a
special condition of supervised release amounts to home confine-
ment. We disagree.
We are not convinced that it will be difficult in practice to
distinguish home confinement from other conditions of supervised
release. Consider this case as an example. The district court ex-
pressly ordered Hall to complete “home detention with location
monitoring.” Thus, the district court’s home detention order is
plainly one that, under Sections 3563(b)(19) and 3583(e)(4), “may
be imposed only as an alternative to incarceration.”
Moreover, the relevant statutes expressly distinguish home
confinement from other kinds of conditions that may be imposed
during probation or supervised release. Both Section 3563(b)(19)
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18 Opinion of the Court 22-10230
and Section 3583(e)(4) provide a definition for home confinement:
an “order [that] the defendant [must] remain at his place of resi-
dence during nonworking hours and, if the court so directs, to have
compliance monitored by telephone or electronic signaling de-
vices.” 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(4); accord id. § 3563(b)(19). Accordingly,
if courts have any difficulty in distinguishing home confinement
from other conditions of supervised release, that difficulty arises
from the text of the statute, not our holding.
IV.
For these reasons, we VACATE Hall’s revised sentence with
the home confinement condition and REMAND for resentencing.