Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694, 5 (2000)

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698

JOHNSON v. UNITED STATES

Opinion of the Court

The District Court revoked Johnson's supervised release, imposed a prison term of 18 months, and ordered Johnson placed on supervised release for 12 months following imprisonment. App. 40-41. For this last order, the District Court did not identify the source of its authority, though under Circuit law it might have relied on § 3583(h), a subsection added to the statute in 1994, see Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, § 110505(2)(B), 108 Stat. 2017. Subsection (h) explicitly gave district courts the power to impose another term of supervised release following imprisonment, a power not readily apparent from the text of § 3583(e)(3) (set out infra, at 704).

Johnson appealed his sentence, arguing that § 3583(e)(3) gave district courts no such power and that applying § 3583(h) to him violated the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution, Art. I, § 9. The Sixth Circuit, joining the majority of the Federal Courts of Appeals, had earlier taken Johnson's position as far as the interpretation of § 3583(e)(3) was concerned, holding that it did not authorize a district court to impose a new term of supervised release following revocation and reimprisonment. See United States v. Truss, 4 F. 3d 437 (CA6 1993).2 It nonetheless affirmed the District Court, judgt. order reported at 181 F. 3d 105 (1999), reasoning that the application of § 3583(h) was not retroactive at all, since revocation of supervised release was punishment for Johnson's violation of the conditions of supervised

2 Of the 11 Circuits to consider the issue, 9 had reached this conclusion. See, e. g., United States v. Koehler, 973 F. 2d 132 (CA2 1992); United States v. Malesic, 18 F. 3d 205 (CA3 1994); United States v. Cooper, 962 F. 2d 339 (CA4 1992); United States v. Holmes, 954 F. 2d 270 (CA5 1992); United States v. Truss, 4 F. 3d 437 (CA6 1993); United States v. McGee, 981 F. 2d 271 (CA7 1992); United States v. Behnezhad, 907 F. 2d 896 (CA9 1990); United States v. Rockwell, 984 F. 2d 1112 (CA10 1993); United States v. Tatum, 998 F. 2d 893 (CA11 1993). Two, the First and the Eighth, found that § 3583(e)(3) did grant district courts such power. See United States v. O'Neil, 11 F. 3d 292 (CA1 1993); United States v. Schrader, 973 F. 2d 623 (CA8 1992).

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