A Cross County man jailed in February after attempting to submit a fake urine sample before a release-revocation hearing was released to home detention in the custody of his mother by a federal magistrate judge Wednesday.
Daniel Keith Jeffrey, 35, of Wynne was discovered trying to use a prosthetic device with a reservoir containing synthetic urine before a hearing regarding the revocation of his supervised release on a drug conviction. A subsequent prehearing test was positive for marijuana use, prompting Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. to order him jailed until a new hearing could be scheduled.
On Feb. 12, U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Harris found that Jeffrey had violated the terms of his release and ordered him remanded to home detention in lieu of jail, but a question of whether Harris could legally do so kept Jeffrey behind bars until the question was resolved in a hearing on Wednesday, at which time he was released.
Jeffrey was indicted along with four other people by a federal grand jury in June 2018 on one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. On Oct. 8, 2019, he entered a plea of guilty to the conspiracy charge and on March 5, 2020, Jeffrey was sentenced to time served and placed on two years of supervised release.
The question at Wednesday's hearing centered around the fact that because Jeffrey had admitted to the release violations, Harris was required by law to revoke his supervised release, but it wasn't immediately clear if she could revoke his release and remand him to home detention in third-party custody or if she would have to send him back to prison.
"According to the statutes," said Cedric Conston, a federal probation officer, "home detention is not applicable."
"So what you are saying is that prison is the only option?" Harris asked.
"Yes ma'am," Conston replied.
But Darrell Brown, Jeffrey's attorney, said he had found nothing in the statutes expressly requiring his client to go to prison.
"I do see that you have to revoke his supervised release," Brown said. "But it does not go into detail as to whether the court has to place this defendant into custody or whether the court can find other options that may serve to his better gain and may also allow him to continue on and work, deal with his family, deal with his issues that we all know of his substance abuse and reporting and things of that sort."
Brown said that his reading of the statutes and the guidelines indicated that the court would have some discretion in the matter.
"I think the court can make a determination as to whether or not there's a need to put him in jail considering everything, including covid, etc., including the amount of time it may take to get him in front of Judge Marshall due to scheduling and covid," Brown said. "My position is that this doesn't say you cannot sentence him to other detention in this case. I don't think there's anything specific saying there's no home detention, just that it has to be revoked."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Gardner agreed, and spoke in support of allowing Jeffrey to be released from jail.
"Another option is that, because he's been in jail for several weeks now, is to sentence him to time served and then supervised release to follow under the conditions you previously set," Gardner said.
Gardner said at Jeffrey's previous hearing that the U.S. attorney's office agreed with giving him another chance because he was a low level methamphetamine dealer when he was arrested and his primary problem stemmed from drug use. But, she said, it would be the last chance he would receive from prosecutors and any further violations would result in her office demanding he be sentenced to jail.