In U.S. v. Mazarky, No. 06-13316 (Sept. 12, 2007), the Court, adopting the view of all other Circuits to have construed the statute, held that a new term of supervised release imposed after two successive revocations of supervised release must be reduced from the statutory maximum by the aggregate length of imprisonment imposed in both revocations. The Court therefore vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing.
The statutory maximum term of supervised release for Mazarky’s original offense of conviction was three years. After his first revocation of supervised release he was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment. After his second revocation of supervised release he was sentenced to 8 months imprisonment – and the district court also imposed a 28-month term of supervised release. Mazarky argued that the 28-month term was invalid, because the statute required that he be given credit for the aggregate 18 months prison sentence off the 36-month cap, resulting in a maximum of 18 months of supervised release. The Court agreed, noting the interpretations of the applicable statutes, 18 U.S.C. §§3583(e)(3) & (h), by other Circuits.
The Court rejected the government’s argument, first raised in this appeal, that the statutory supervised release maximum was greater than three years, because the drug trafficking offense of conviction carried a statutory maximum greater than the three years provided in the supervised release statute. The Court noted that Mazarky’s guilty plea was based on a three-year maximum for supervised release, and "in order to preserve notice to the defendant" it declined to consider this new argument.
