United States v. Poole

In United States v. Poole, No. 24-60194 (5th Cir. Jan. 7, 2025) (unpublished), the Fifth Circuit vacated the district court’s judgment that had ordered Poole to serve an additional six months in prison “more than five years after she completed her [original] term of supervised release.”

Poole pled guilty to tax evasion in 2012, served her prison sentence, and was released onto supervised release in 2014. She completed her term of supervised release in 2018, but she failed to continue making restitution payments as required by her criminal judgment.

In January 2022, Poole and the Government agreed to a new payment schedule of $300 per month, but Poole did not follow that agreement. So in June 2023, the Government “moved to resentence Poole under 18 U.S.C. § 3614.” The district court accepted briefing and held three hearings, after which it sentenced Poole to six months of imprisonment.

Issue: Did the district court have jurisdiction to resentence Poole after she completed her term of supervised release?

Held: Maybe. Poole failed to raise her jurisdictional argument in the district court, so the Fifth Circuit elected to vacate her sentence and remand the case to allow the district court to consider the question in the first instance.

Under 18 U.S.C. § 3613A, a district court may take several approaches after “finding that the defendant is in default on a payment of a fine or restitution,” including that the court may “resentence a defendant pursuant to section 3614.” Under § 3614(a), a defendant who “knowingly fails to pay a delinquent fine or restitution” may be resentenced “to any sentence which might originally have been imposed.”

Nevertheless, § 3613A explains that the court’s authority in such circumstances is “pursuant to section 3565,” which refers only to violations “prior to the expiration or termination of the term” of supervision. So which is it?

The Fifth Circuit took no position on that question and instead remanded the case to the district court without providing it with any guidance. See United States v. Jiminez-Garcia, 951 F.3d 704, 705 (5th Cir. 2020) (“When a district court ‘fails to explicitly decide [an] issue’ that weighs on the district court’s jurisdiction, the ‘better solution is to remand the case to the district court for determination of the jurisdictional questions’ rather than dismissing the matter altogether.” (internal citations omitted)).