DocketNumber： 93-1471
Filed Date： 11/8/1993
Status： Precedential
Modified Date： 9/21/2015
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
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No. 93-1471
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
JOSE PARA,
Defendant, Appellant.
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APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
[Hon. Francis J. Boyle, U.S. District Judge]
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Before
Cyr, Circuit Judge,
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Bownes, Senior Circuit Judge,
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and Stahl, Circuit Judge.
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Damon M. D'Ambrosio and Martin D. Harris, Esquire, Ltd. on brief
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for appellant.
Edwin J. Gale, United States Attorney, Margaret E. Curran,
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Assistant United States Attorney, and Gerard B. Sullivan, Assistant
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United States Attorney, on brief for appellee.
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November 8, 1993
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Per Curiam. Appellant Jose Para was sentenced to a
Per Curiam
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three-year prison term and a three-year term of supervised
release on December 1, 1987, for distributing four and one-half
ounces of cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1),(b)(1)(-
C), on or about May 6, 1987 ("first offense"). On or about
May 6, 1989, after Para had served two years of the three-year
prison term, the United States Parole Commission authorized his
release on parole. On February 2, 1992, while still on super-
vised release, Para was arrested for distributing a detectable
amount of heroin, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1),(b)(1)(C)
("second offense"). In 1993, Para was convicted and sentenced to
a sixteen-month prison term for the second offense. Following a
violation hearing before the district court in the wake of the
second offense, Para was sentenced to a consecutive sixteen-month
prison term for violating the supervised release term imposed in
connection with the first offense.
We summarily reject Para's mischaracterization of the
plain language of the December 1, 1987, judgment of conviction
and sentence, as imposing a term of "special parole" rather than
a term of "supervised release." The judgment explicitly imposed
"a term of supervised release for a period of three years"
following Para's release from prison. Undaunted, Para insists
that, in fact, he must have been sentenced to a "special parole"
term, because he was paroled by the United States Parole Commis-
sion. "Special parole," prior to its elimination under the
Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (SRA), Gozlon-Peretz v. United
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States, 498 U.S. 395, 397 (1991), was a mandatory element in any
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prison sentence imposed for a federal drug offense. The form of
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parole on which Para was released from prison in 1989, however,
is merely a post-sentencing administrative ruling by the Parole
Commission that the defendant should be conditionally released
into the community prior to the completion of the full term of
imprisonment imposed by the sentencing court. See Morrissey v.
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Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 477 (1972).
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Para's alternate claim is that the sixteen-month prison
term the district court imposed in 1993 for committing the second
offense while on supervised release is an invalid ex post facto
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punishment. See Hammond v. United States, 786 F.2d 8, 16 (1st
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Cir. 1986). Para reasons that in May of 1987 the date of the
first offense a lawful term of supervised release could not
have been imposed, no matter what the judgment of conviction and
sentence stated, because the SRA did not take effect until
November 1, 1987, well after the commission of the first offense.
This claim is foreclosed by Gozlon-Peretz, which held
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that, "in the interim period between October 27, 1986, and
November 1, 1987, supervised release applies for all drug offens-
es in the categories specified by ADAA 1002" [Section 1002 of
the Anti Drug Abuse Act of 1986, Pub. L. No. 99-570, 100 Stat
3207]. 498 U.S. at 409. Since the first offense was for an ADAA
1002 violation (distribution of cocaine in violation of 21
U.S.C. 841(a)(1),(b)(1)(C)) and ADAA 1002 became effective
upon its enactment on October 27, 1986, the district court
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correctly sentenced Para to a mandatory term of supervised
release on December 1, 1987, see 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1), (b)-
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(1)(C).
The district court judgment is summarily affirmed. See
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Loc. R. 27.1.
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