United States v. Pullen ( 1998 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
No. 96-7244
JERRY LEE PULLEN, a/k/a Joseph
Davis,
Defendant-Appellant.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
No. 96-7599
JERRY LEE PULLEN, a/k/a Joseph
Davis,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeals from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh.
W. Earl Britt, Senior District Judge.
(CR-90-88, CA-96-479-5-1-BR)
Submitted: April 21, 1998
Decided: June 22, 1998
Before MURNAGHAN, NIEMEYER, and WILLIAMS,
Circuit Judges.
_________________________________________________________________
Affirmed in part and vacated and remanded in part by unpublished
per curiam opinion.
_________________________________________________________________
COUNSEL
Jerry Lee Pullen, Appellant Pro Se. Bruce Charles Johnson, OFFICE
OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Raleigh, North Carolina,
for Appellee.
_________________________________________________________________
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See
Local Rule 36(c).
_________________________________________________________________
OPINION
PER CURIAM:
Jerry Lee Pullen appeals the district court's order granting his
motion filed pursuant to 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 (West 1994 & Supp.
1998), which overturned his conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)
(1994), but failed to address his challenges to his supervised release.
Pullen also appeals the denial of his Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b) motion for
relief. We find that the district court correctly refused to grant Pullen
credit toward his supervised release sentence for time served in prison
on the vacated conviction. However, we also conclude that the sen-
tencing court erred in imposing the original sixty-month term of
supervised release. Accordingly, we grant a certificate of appeala-
bility, affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand for resentencing.
Pullen pled guilty to possession with the intent to distribute cocaine1
and use of a firearm during a drug trafficking crime.2 In April 1991,
the court sentenced Pullen to twenty-one months imprisonment to be
followed by a sixty-month term of supervised release for the drug
trafficking offense; for the firearms offense, the court sentenced Pul-
len to serve sixty months imprisonment to be followed by thirty-six
months of supervised release. The imprisonment terms were ordered
to run consecutively, while the supervised release terms were ordered
_________________________________________________________________
1 See 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) (1994).
2 See 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (1994).
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to run concurrently. Pullen was scheduled to be released from federal
prison on August 12, 1996. Pullen did not appeal his conviction or
sentence.3
In his pro se § 2255 motion, Pullen sought to vacate his § 924(c)
conviction by asserting that the evidence was insufficient under
Bailey v. United States, 516 U.S. 137 (1995), to support his convic-
tion. Pullen also requested that the supervised release term imposed
on the § 841 drug trafficking conviction be reduced by the amount of
time he served on the allegedly invalid § 924(c) conviction. Further,
Pullen asserted that the sixty-month supervised release term, which
was imposed as part of the drug trafficking conviction, was excessive.
Based on the Government's concession that the evidence was
insufficient under Bailey to support Pullen's § 924(c) conviction, the
district court granted Pullen's § 2255 motion, ordering his immediate
release from confinement. But the court did not address Pullen's
supervised release claims. With the aid of counsel, Pullen filed a Rule
60(b) motion challenging his sixty-month term of supervised release.
The Government did not respond. The district court denied Pullen's
request for supervised release credit, concluding that it was statutorily
precluded by 18 U.S.C.A. § 3624(e) (West 1994 & Supp. 1998), from
providing such relief. Further, the court declined to address Pullen's
excessive supervised release claim, finding that Pullen had not reas-
serted this claim in his reply to the Government's response to his
§ 2255 motion.
On appeal, Pullen first asserts that he is entitled to a reduction in
his supervised release term. When the district court overturned Pul-
len's § 924(c) conviction, he had served more than seventy months of
the total eighty-one month sentence, completing the twenty-one
month sentence imposed on the drug trafficking conviction. Pullen
seeks to have the fifty months served on the invalid firearms convic-
tion deducted from the remaining sixty-month supervised release
_________________________________________________________________
3 Pullen stated that he "did not appeal imposition of sentence based on
plea of guilty and due to advise [sic] of counsel that no grounds existed
for which to support an appeal." In his plea agreement he waived his
right to challenge his conviction and sentence, either on direct appeal or
collaterally.
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term, asserting that his term of supervised release should have been
deemed to begin on the day he would have been released after com-
pleting the twenty-one month sentence.
The district court correctly concluded that a prisoner's term of
supervised release does not begin until he has been released from
prison and cannot run while the prisoner is incarcerated.4 Accord-
ingly, we affirm the district court's order refusing to award credit
toward Pullen's supervised release term.
Next, Pullen asserts that the sixty-month supervised release term is
improper because it exceeds the three-year statutory maximum.5 Pul-
len contends that he should be resentenced to a thirty-six month term
of supervised release. Pullen pled guilty to possession with the intent
to distribute cocaine, a Class C felony.6 For Class C felony convic-
tions, sentencing courts are required to impose a supervised release
term of at least three years, in addition to the term of imprisonment.7
The statutory maximum term of supervised release is set as follows:
"Except as otherwise provided, the authorized term[ ] of supervised
release . . . for a Class C . . . felony, [is] not more than three years."8
The maximum and minimum supervised release term for Class C fel-
ony convictions is three years.9 Accordingly, Pullen must be resen-
tenced as to the supervised release term on his§ 841 conviction.
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4 See 18 U.S.C.A. § 3624(e).
5 Although Pullen did not challenge the imposition of the sixty-month
supervised release term on direct appeal, we find that his claim is prop-
erly before this court. See United States v. Wynn, 987 F.2d 354, 359 (6th
Cir. 1993) ("Sentencing [the defendant] beyond the statutory maximum
plainly violated his right to due process under the[F]ifth [A]mendment
to the United States Constitution."); United States v. Metzger, 3 F.3d
756, 757-58 (4th Cir. 1993) (holding that Government's failure to argue
for cause-and-prejudice review under United States v. Frady, 456 U.S.
152, 166, 167-68 (1982), precludes the Government from asserting a
waiver argument and allows appellate court to reach merits).
6 See 18 U.S.C. § 3559(a)(3) (1994); 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C) (1994).
7 See 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C).
8 18 U.S.C. § 3583(b)(2) (1994) (emphasis added).
9 See United States v. Good, 25 F.3d 218 (4th Cir. 1994) (holding that
18 U.S.C. § 3583(b)(1) sets the maximum term of supervised release that
may be imposed under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B) (1994)).
4
We affirm the district court's orders that overturned Pullen's
§ 924(c) conviction and declined to award him credit toward his
supervised release term for the time he spent in prison on the vacated
§ 924(c) conviction. Further, we vacate that part of the district court's
order that denied relief on Pullen's excessive supervised release claim
and remand for the district court to resentence Pullen to thirty-six
months of supervised release. We deny Pullen's motion to expedite
the appeal as moot. We dispense with oral argument because the facts
and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before
the court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED IN PART; VACATED AND REMANDED IN PART
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