United States v. Contreras-Arevalo

United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
F I L E D
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT October 17, 2005
_______________________ Charles R. Fulbruge III
Clerk
No. 05-10938
_______________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
GABRIEL CONTRERAS-AREVALO,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Texas
3:98-CR-00411
Before JONES, DeMOSS, and OWEN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
Appellant Contreras-Arevalo appeals the judgment of the
district court below, finding him in violation of a term of his
supervised release and sentencing him to eight months of
incarceration. Because we conclude that Contreras-Arevalo’s prior
incarceration tolled his supervised release under 18 U.S.C.
§ 3624(e), we AFFIRM.
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.
I. BACKGROUND
Gabriel Contreras-Arevalo is a citizen and national of
Mexico. On or about February 4, 1992, he was deported from the
United States. On September 9, 1998, Contreras-Arevalo was
arrested and charged with a violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326, the
illegal reentry of a deported felon into the United States. On
April 21, 1999, he was sentenced to a term of twenty-one months
imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release.
Contreras-Arevalo’s supervised release began on May 19, 2000, when
he was again deported to Mexico. The terms of Contreras-Arevalo’s
supervised release stated that he was not to illegally reenter the
United States or to commit another federal, state, or local crime;
the period of supervised release was originally set to expire on
May 19, 2003.
While on supervised release, Contreras-Arevalo was again
arrested and charged with illegal reentry. On September 11, 2000,
he pleaded guilty to the charges against him, and on January 11,
2001, he was sentenced to seventy months of incarceration, followed
by an additional three years of supervised release. Contreras-
Arevalo was scheduled to be released from prison on July 1, 2005.
However, on June 29, 2005, a warrant revoking his supervised
release was issued, and on July 1, 2005, Contreras-Arevalo was
arrested for violating a mandatory condition of his supervised
release. On July 21, 2005, Contreras-Arevalo pleaded guilty to the
2
charge against him, and was sentenced to an additional eight months
of incarceration. He now brings this appeal, which pursuant to
28 U.S.C. § 1291 and 18 U.S.C. § 3742, may be heard in this court.
II. ISSUE ON APPEAL
Contreras-Arevalo argues on appeal that 18 U.S.C.
§ 3583(i) requires the Government to issue a warrant revoking his
supervised release during the original term of supervised release,
and that absent such a warrant, 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e), a tolling
statute, does not apply to his case. He claims that the term of
supervised release at issue here fully expired on May 19, 2003, and
that the district court lacked jurisdiction to proceed against him.
III. DISCUSSION
This court reviews the district court’s jurisdiction to
revoke a defendant’s supervised release de novo. United States v.
Jiminez-Martinez, 179 F.3d 980, 981 (5th Cir. 1999).
A district court may revoke an offender’s supervised
release for the violation of a condition of supervised release and
order him to serve a term of imprisonment. 18 U.S.C. § 3583(i).
The court may, in certain circumstances, maintain this power beyond
the expiration of the offender’s supervised release term. Id.
However, 18 U.S.C. § 3583(i) makes clear that such action may only
be taken if “before [the supervised release term’s] expiration, a
warrant or summons has been issued on the basis of an allegation of
such violation.” Id. The revocation warrant in this case was
3
issued on June 29, 2005, long after Contreras-Arevalo’s initial
term of supervised release was set to expire. Thus, unless
Contreras-Arevalo’s term of supervised release was tolled during
his imprisonment, the district court lacked jurisdiction to revoke
his supervised release.
The text of 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e) states simply enough that
“[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.” Contreras-Arevalo
acknowledges § 3624(e), but argues that § 3624(e) is not triggered
until the Government complies with § 3583(i). He contends that the
Government needed to file a revocation warrant at some point prior
to May 19, 2003, in order to activate § 3624(e) and toll his
supervised release during his incarceration. This proposition is
without merit.
This court interprets statutes according to their plain
meanings. Conn. Bank of Commerce v. Republic of Congo, 309 F.3d
240, 260 (5th Cir. 2002). The text of § 3624(e) states that super-
vised release is tolled by imprisonment related to a conviction.
The statute makes no mention of § 3583(i), or of procedures that
the government must follow for tolling to occur. The statute
merely states a condition — a conviction for a federal, state, or
local crime — that tolls supervised release. Therefore, we must
conclude that § 3624(e) tolls supervised release automatically, and
4
without compliance with § 3583(i). To hold otherwise would turn
§ 3624(e) into something resembling an equitable tolling mechanism,
which it plainly is not. Contreras-Arevalo was imprisoned during
his supervised release term, owing to his conviction on a federal
offense; his period of supervised release could not run under §
3624(e).
Moreover, the case relied upon by Contreras-Arevalo in
support of his contention that the Government needed to file a
revocation warrant during his original supervised release term is
inapposite. United States v. Naranjo, 259 F.3d 379 (5th Cir.
2001), concerned a situation in which there was no dispute that the
offender’s term of supervised release had completely expired. The
holding in Naranjo, that a single timely warrant for revocation
preserves jurisdiction for all violations occurring during the
offender’s term of supervision, has nothing to do with whether
Contreras-Arevalo’s term of supervised release was tolled by his
incarceration. Id. at 383. While a timely revocation warrant
against Contreras-Arevalo would have provided a basis for
jurisdiction against him under Naranjo, nowhere in Naranjo does the
court endorse the theory advanced in this case, that a warrant is
a necessary prerequisite to activate other tolling statutes. This
strained interpretation of Naranjo sidesteps § 3624(e), ignoring
the fact that supervised release does not run while an offender is
incarcerated.
5
Finally, this case is cast as one of first impression,
but that is no longer true. The two parties are excusably unaware
of the circuit’s recent opinion in United States v. Jackson,
No. 04-30887, 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 20222 (5th Cir. Sept. 20, 2005),
which was published only recently. That case provides a detailed
analysis of § 3624(e), and is dispositive here. In Jackson, an
offender spent approximately seven months in prison during his term
of supervised release, which was originally set to expire in
January 2004. In March 2004, however, the Government filed a
warrant to revoke Jackson’s supervised release, and he was
sentenced to further incarceration. This circuit held that
Jackson’s incarceration had tolled his period of supervised release
under § 3624(e), and that the supervised release did not expire
until August 2004, making the revocation warrant against him
timely.
The Jackson court reasoned that the plain language of
§ 3624(e) tolls supervised release for all terms of imprisonment
related to a conviction without exception, and that holding
otherwise would run contrary to the purpose of supervised release,
which is designed to help the offender make a “transition back into
the community.” Jackson, at *10-11; see also United States v.
Jeanes, 150 F.3d 483, 485 (5th Cir. 1998)(discussing policy goals
of supervised release).
Contreras-Arevalo suggests that there would be
administrative problems if the “true” expiration date of an
6
offender’s supervised release was not always readily known, but he
glosses over the fact that while incarcerated, he was not meeting
the goals of supervised release. Contreras-Arevalo’s transition
back into the community was frustrated, and in all likelihood
undone, by his incarceration. While in prison, he was necessarily
kept apart from the community, and away from the supervision of his
probation officers. This is precisely the situation that § 3624(e)
serves to correct, by tolling supervised release and aspiring to
ease offenders into free society by serving their supervised
release terms in full.
When he returned to prison in 2001, Contreras-Arevalo had
not even served a year of his three-year term of supervised
release. Under § 3624(e), his supervised release was tolled.
Thus, Contreras-Arevalo had more than two years remaining on the
supervised release term stemming from his 1999 conviction when he
was to be released on July 1, 2005. The district court therefore
had jurisdiction to find him in violation of his supervised
release.
CONCLUSION
Because Contreras-Arevalo was under supervised release
throughout the revocation process against him, we AFFIRM the
judgment of the district court.
7