USCA1 Opinion
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
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No. 94-1090
UNITED STATES,
Appellee,
v.
RANDY LAPLANTE,
Defendant, Appellant.
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APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. A. David Mazzone, U.S. District Judge]
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Before
Selya, Cyr, and Boudin,
Circuit Judges.
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Martin D. Boudreau on brief for appellant
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Donald K. Stern, United States Attorney, and Mark W.
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Pearlstein, Assistant United States Attorney, on brief for
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appellee.
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July 15, 1994
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Per Curiam. Defendant appeals the sentence
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imposed upon him following revocation of a term of supervised
release. Defendant was initially sentenced to six
months imprisonment and thirty-six months on supervised
release following his guilty plea to one count of using a
false social security number, in violation of 42 U.S.C.
408(a)(7)(B).
Defendant conceded that shortly after his release
from prison, he violated two special conditions of his
supervised release. The district court granted the petition
for revocation and resentenced defendant to a term of eleven
months imprisonment, followed by twenty-four months on
supervised release.
Defendant's only argument on appeal is that the
supervised release revocation provision ("SRR") of the
Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, 18 U.S.C. 3583(e)(3), does
not authorize the district court to impose a term of
supervised release in conjunction with an additional prison
term. This court recently considered, and rejected, an
identical contention in United States v. O'Neil, 11 F.3d 292
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(1st Cir. 1993). We held in O'Neil,
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[T]he SRR provision . . . permits a district court,
upon revocation of a term of supervised release, to
impose a prison sentence combining incarceration
with a further term of supervised release, so long
as (1) the incarcerative portion of the sentence
does not exceed the time limit specified in the SRR
provision itself, and (2) the combined length of
the new prison sentence cum supervision term does
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not exceed the duration of the original term of
supervised release.
O'Neil, 11 F.3d at 302.
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As defendant acknowledges, the sentence imposed by
the district court here comports with O'Neil. The combined
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limit of the three years matches the length of the original
term of supervision, and the included eleven month prison
term is well below the time limit of two years incarceration
for the underlying Class D felony.
Defendant urges, however, that the Supreme Court's
opinion in United States v. Granderson, 114 S. Ct. 1259
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(1994), "has substantially undermined the reasoning and basis
of O'Neil." We disagree. Granderson involved the statutory
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interpretation of a different section of the Sentencing
Reform Act, the probation revocation section. See 18 U.S.C.
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3565. The interpretive issue in Granderson was the meaning
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of the benchmark term "original sentence," as used in the
provision requiring imposition of a sentence of "not less
than one-third of the original sentence," when a probationer
is found in possession of illegal drugs. 18 U.S.C.
3565(a). Granderson did not address the O'Neil question --
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the power of a sentencing court to impose combined sentences
-- but focused on the correct measure of the length of a
sentence to be imposed. Granderson and O'Neil thus
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involved different substantive and interpretive issues,
discrete texts, statutory structures, and histories. See
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Granderson, 114 S. Ct. at 1266 (stating that different
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functions of supervised release and probation weigh heavily
against an in pari materia reading of the separately worded
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revocation provisions); O'Neil, 11 F.3d at 298-300 (tracing
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differences in the design of the current sentencing regime to
historical differences between probation and parole). The
differences which defendant observes in the two opinions are
a function of the lack of common issues, not of differences
in analytic method or statutory construction.
As the dispositive issue on appeal has been
recently and authoritatively decided by a panel of this
court, and no other substantial question is presented, the
decision below is summarily affirmed. See Loc. R. 27.1.
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