706
Opinion of the Court
that is "revoked" continues to have some effect. And since it continues in some sense after revocation even when part of it is served in prison, why can the balance of it not remain effective as a term of supervised release when the reincarceration is over? 8
Without more, we would have to admit that Congress had used "revoke" in an unconventional way in subsection (3), but it turns out that the unconventional sense is not unheard of. See United States v. O'Neil, 11 F. 3d 292, 295-296 (CA1 1993). Webster's Third New International Dictionary (our edition of which was issued three years before the 1984 Act) reveals that "revoke" can mean "to call or summon back," without the implication (here) that no further supervised release is subsequently possible. It gives "recall" as a synonym and comments that "RECALL in this sense indicates a calling back, suspending, or abrogating, either finally as erroneous or ill-advised or tentatively for deliberation . . . ." Ibid.9 The unconventional dictionary definition is not, of
8 Justice Scalia, post, at 721, thinks the "term" survives only as a measure of duration, but of course the statute does not read "require the person to serve a term in prison equal to all or part of the term of supervised release . . . ."
9 While this sense is of course less common, the most recent editions of the most authoritative dictionaries do not tag it as rare or obsolete. The Oxford English Dictionary gives five examples of this usage, albeit hardly recent ones: three are drawn from the late 16th century and the most recent from 1784. 13 Oxford English Dictionary 838 (2d ed. 1989). But the OED is unabashedly antiquarian; of its examples for the more common meaning of "revoke," the most recent dates from 1873. Ibid. Webster's, it should be noted, includes the less common meaning, without antiquarian reproach, in its third edition. Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1944 (1981).
As Justice Scalia remarks, in relying on an uncommon sense of the word, we are departing from the rule of construction that prefers ordinary meaning, see post, at 715. But this is exactly what ought to happen when the ordinary meaning fails to fit the text and when the realization of clear congressional policy (here, favoring the ability to impose supervised release) is in tension with the result that customary interpretive rules would deliver. See, e. g., Commissioner v. Brown, 380 U. S. 563, 571 (1965) (recognizing "some 'scope for adopting a restricted rather than a literal or
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