United States v. Marcus Harris, 878 F.3d 111

Background

Marcus L. Harris pleaded guilty in 2009 to possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine (Class B felony) and received a term of imprisonment and 48 months supervised release.
In July 2015 a traffic stop and subsequent searches uncovered firearms and suspected drugs; Harris failed to report police questioning to his probation officer as required.
The government filed a federal petition to revoke Harris’s supervised release (original petition) alleging failure to report and drug/firearm offenses; while that petition was pending, state murder charges and later a federal felon-in-possession indictment arose from the same events.
On October 6, 2015 the district court revoked Harris’s original supervised-release term for the reporting violation, sentenced him to 1 month imprisonment and 40 months supervised release, and deferred ruling on other allegations tied to pending prosecutions.
After a subsequent federal conviction for felon-in-possession (April 2016), the court revoked supervised release again on August 18, 2016 and imposed 36 months imprisonment and 24 months supervised release; Harris appealed, arguing lack of jurisdiction for the second revocation and that the sentence exceeded statutory maximums.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the district court retained jurisdiction to revoke supervised release a second time	Harris: once court revokes a term it no longer exists, so subsequent revocation based on charges filed after first revocation is untimely	Government: revocation does not terminate the supervised-release term; court retains jurisdiction until the term expires or is terminated	Court: retained jurisdiction because revocation does not discharge the term and the government filed the relevant petition while supervised release remained in effect
Whether petitions filed after the first revocation but before supervised-release expiration are timely	Harris: Winfield only supports multiple revocations when all petitions are filed before first revocation	Government: timing relevant to supervised-release expiration, not to first revocation; Winfield controls	Court: petitions filed during post-revocation imprisonment occurred before supervised-release expiration, so timely
Whether the district court must aggregate imprisonment from successive revocations	Harris: combining first and second revocation punishments exceeds statutory maximums	Government: §3583(e)(3) permits up-to-36-month imprisonment “on any such revocation,” so limits are per-revocation, not aggregate	Court: per-revocation limits apply; no aggregation required; sentence within statutory maximums
Whether the second revocation impermissibly punished the same term twice	Harris: retaining the same term and revoking again means double punishment of the same term	Government: second revocation targeted the then-current (post-first-revocation) term of supervised release and statutory scheme permits multiple revocations	Court: record shows second revocation addressed the current supervised-release term; statute contemplates multiple revocations; no error

Key Cases Cited

Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694 (U.S. 2000) (a revoked term of supervised release can continue to have effect; revocation does not necessarily terminate the release term)
United States v. Winfield, 665 F.3d 107 (4th Cir. 2012) (district court retains jurisdiction to hold bifurcated revocation hearings and impose additional prison time so long as petition is filed before supervised-release expiration)
United States v. Cross, 846 F.3d 188 (6th Cir. 2017) (supervisory authority continues until supervised release terminates or expires)
United States v. Wing, 682 F.3d 861 (9th Cir. 2012) (adopted a narrower definition of "revoke," but is distinguishable and not followed by this court)
United States v. Spencer, 720 F.3d 363 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (post-2003 §3583(e)(3) imprisonment limits are per-revocation, not aggregate)