Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694, 2 (2000)

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Cite as: 529 U. S. 694 (2000)

Syllabus

rule does not reveal when or how that legislative decision was intended to take effect; and the omission of an express effective date simply indicates that, absent clear congressional direction, it takes effect on its enactment date, Gozlon-Peretz v. United States, 498 U. S. 395, 404. Nor did Congress expressly identify the relevant conduct in a way that would point to retroactive intent. Thus, this case turns not on an ex post facto question, but on whether § 3583(e)(3) permitted imposition of supervised release following a recommitment. Pp. 699-703.

2. Section 3583(e)(3), at the time of Johnson's conviction, gave the District Court the authority to reimpose supervised release. Subsection (e)(3) does not speak directly to this question. And if the Court were to concentrate exclusively on the verb "revoke," it would not detect any suggestion that reincarceration might be followed by another supervised release term, for the conventional understanding of "revoke" is to annul by recalling or taking back. However, there are textual reasons to think that the option of further supervised release was intended. Subsection (e)(1) unequivocally "terminate[s]" a supervised release term without the possibility of its reimposition or continuation at a later time. Had Congress likewise meant subsection (3) to conclude any possibility of supervised release later, it would have been natural for Congress to write in like terms. That it chose "revoke" rather than "terminate" left the door open to a reading of subsection (3) that would not preclude further supervised release. The pre-1994 version of subsection (3) provided that a court could revoke a term of supervised release and require the person to serve in prison all or part of the "term of supervised release." This indicates that a revoked supervised release term continues to have some effect. If it could be served in prison, then the balance of it should remain effective when the reincarceration is over. This interpretation means that Congress used "revoke" in an unconventional way. However, the unconventional sense is not unheard of, for "revoke" can also mean to call or summon back without the implication of annulment. There is nothing surprising about the consequences of this reading. It also serves the congressional policy of providing for supervised release after incarceration in order to improve the odds of a successful transition from prison to liberty, and no prisoner would seem to need it more than one who has tried liberty and failed. This reading is also supported by pre-Sentencing-Guidelines parole practice. Congress repeatedly used "revoke" in providing for the consequences of parole violations, and there seems never to have been a question that a new parole term could follow a prison sentence imposed after revocation of an initial parole term. Since parole revocation followed by reincarceration was not a mere termination of a limited liberty that a defendant could experience only once per conviction, it is fair to suppose that,

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