United States v. Johnson, 529 U.S. 53, 6 (2000)

Page:   Index   Previous  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  Next

58

UNITED STATES v. JOHNSON

Opinion of the Court

current running of a term of supervised release with terms of probation, parole, or with other, separate terms of supervised release. The statute instructs that concurrency is permitted not for prison sentences but only for those other types of sentences given specific mention. The next sentence in the statute does address a prison term and does allow concurrent counting, but only for prison terms less than 30 days in length. When Congress provides exceptions in a statute, it does not follow that courts have authority to create others. The proper inference, and the one we adopt here, is that Congress considered the issue of exceptions and, in the end, limited the statute to the ones set forth. The 30-day exception finds no application in this case; each of respondent's sentences, to which the term of supervised release attached, exceeded that amount of time. Finally, § 3583(e)(3) does not have a substantial bearing on the interpretive issue, for this directive addresses instances where conditions of supervised release have been violated, and the court orders a revocation.

Our conclusion finds further support in 18 U. S. C. § 3583(a), which authorizes the imposition of "a term of supervised release after imprisonment." This provision, too, is inconsistent with respondent's contention that confinement and supervised release can run at the same time. The statute's direction is clear and precise. Release takes place on the day the prisoner in fact is freed from confinement.

The Court of Appeals reasoned that reduction of respond-ent's supervised release term was a necessary implementation of § 3624(a), which provides that "[a] prisoner shall be released by the Bureau of Prisons on the date of the expiration of the prisoner's term of imprisonment . . . ." All concede respondent's term of imprisonment should have ended earlier than it did. It does not follow, however, that the term of supervised release commenced, as a matter of law, once he completed serving his lawful sentences. It is true the prison term and the release term are related, for the latter cannot begin until the former expires. Though inter-

Page:   Index   Previous  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  Next

Last modified: October 4, 2007