Fugitive Tolling While On Supervised Release

US v. Thompson: Thompson, a citizen of Jamaica, was convicted on drug and gun charges and sentences to (among other things) a five-year term of supervised release, which he began serving in June 2010. One special condition of his supervised release was that he not return to the United States without permission and, if he did return to the US (for any reason), he was required to report to the nearest probation officer within 72 hours.

In 2011, Thompson was found in California and promptly removed back to Jamaica. A petition was filed seeing the revocation of his supervised release was filed, and a warrant issued, but Thompson was deported before it was served. In December 2014, six months before his five-year term of supervised release would end, Thompson returned to the US. He did not notify a probation officer and was arrested in Florida on drug charges in June 2017, two years after his supervision was supposed to end. Thompson argued that the court lacked jurisdiction to revoke his term of supervised release. The district court disagreed, holding that Thompson had been a fugitive from justice, which tolled his term of supervised release beyond the originally projected termination date. Thompson was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

On appeal, the Fourth Circuit vacated Thompson’s revocation, partially. The court rejected Thompson’s argument that because he didn’t know about the original petition filed in 2011 that he could not have actively and knowingly avoided adjudication for it. Fugitive tolling in the supervised release context has nothing to do with whether the supervisee knows there is a petition pending against him, due to the nature of supervised release and Congressional desire that defendants serve their entire term. By failing to report to a probation officer Thompson did not serve his entire supervised release term and that was “the result of Thompson’s own misconduct, in the form of knowingly absconding from supervision.” However, the court noted that it was a more difficult issue to determine precisely when the tolling period ran and therefore remanded the matter to the district court to “consider other possible bases for jurisdiction in this case.” In particular, the court held that once Thompson was in custody in Florida his “fugitive status came to an end for tolling purposes.”