In U.S. v. English, No. 09-12788 (Dec. 16, 2009), the Court held that a defendant who was convicted under the Assimilative Crimes Act (ACA), and who has served the state statutory maximum term of imprisonment, may be sentenced to further incarceration upon revocation of supervised release.
The defendant was convicted under ACA of DUI at a Naval Air Station in Florida. The Florida maximum punishment for this offense was five years’ incarceration. His sentence was five years, followed by three years of supervised release. After serving the sentence of incarceration, while on supervised release, English violated his conditions of supervised release, and after his revocation hearing the court imposed a 24-month term of incarceration. English appealed, claiming that the 24-month additional sentence exceeded the statutory five-year maximum for his Florida DUI offense.
The Court noted that sentencing courts are authorized to impose a term of supervised release under ACA, even if this term is in addition to the state statutory maximum. If a defendant violates supervised release, the sentencing court has the same authority that it has in non-ACA supervised release violations: to order additional incarceration in order to provide the deterrent mechanism intended by Congress. If a conflict exists between State and Federal law, the state law is not assimilated. Federal sentencing policy regarding supervised release overrides conflicting state provisions regarding maximum terms of incarceration.
