Cite as: 529 U. S. 694 (2000)
Kennedy, J., concurring in part
provisions suggests that the possibility of supervised release following imprisonment was meant to be eliminated.13
In sum, from a purely textual perspective, the more plausible reading of § 3583(e)(3) before its amendment and the addition of subsection (h) leaves open the possibility of supervised release after reincarceration. Pre-Guidelines practice, linguistic continuity from the old scheme to the current one, and the obvious thrust of congressional sentencing policy confirm that, in applying the law as before the enactment of subsection (h), district courts have the authority to order terms of supervised release following reimprisonment.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is
Affirmed.
Justice Kennedy, concurring in part.
The Court holds that 18 U. S. C. § 3583(e)(3), as it stood before the amendment adding what is now subsection (h), permits a trial court to impose further incarceration followed by a period of supervised release after revoking an earlier supervised release because the conditions were violated. In my view this is the correct result. The subsection permits a court to "require [a] person to serve in prison all or part of the term of supervised release" originally imposed. 18 U. S. C. § 3583(e)(3) (1988 ed., Supp. V). This indicates that after the right to be on supervised release has been revoked there is yet an unexpired term of supervised release that can be allocated, in the court's discretion, in whole or in part to confinement and to release on such terms and conditions
13 Nor does our traditional rule of lenity in interpreting criminal statutes demand a contrary result. Lenity applies only when the equipoise of competing reasons cannot otherwise be resolved (not the case here), and in any event the rule of lenity would be Delphic in this case. There is simply no way to tell whether sentencing courts given the option of supervised release will generally be more or less lenient in fixing the second prison sentence.
713
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