Yes, you can absolutely add a date range inside a segment....
However, the way segments work, won't really result in "0" results if the panel data range doesn't match the segment....
For instance, if you create a segment that looks at "Hits" for Home Page and Last Year... even if your report range is set to this month, the data returned will be home pages that were viewed last year....
Maybe if you can provide an example of the end result, we can help to figure out a way to create an exclusion based on the panel selection....