716
Scalia, J., dissenting
1992) (defining "revoke" as "[t]o void or annul by recalling, withdrawing, or reversing; cancel; rescind"). Under this reading, the "revoked" term of supervised release is simply canceled; and since there is no authorization for a new term of supervised release to replace the one that has been revoked, additional supervised release is unavailable.
The Court is not content with this natural reading, however, and proceeds to adopt what it calls an "unconventional" reading of "revoke," ante, at 706, as meaning "to call or summon back" without annulling, ibid.1 It thereby concludes that the revoked term of supervised release retains some effect, and thus that additional supervised release may be required after reimprisonment. The Court suggests that its abandonment of ordinary meaning is justified by the text, by congressional purpose, and by analogy to pre-Guidelines practice regarding nondetentive monitoring. None of the proffered reasons is convincing.
The Court claims textual support for its "unconventional" reading in the fact that subsection (e)(3), at issue here, uses the term "revoke," while subsection (e)(1) uses the term "terminate." Since, the Court reasons, the two terms should not be interpreted to have exactly the same meaning, (1) the statute must intend a "less common" meaning of "revoke," namely, "call back," see ante, at 706, and n. 9; and (2) this "less common" meaning authorizes the later imposition of supervised release. Each part of this two-step analysis is patently false.
1 Describing the Court's reading as "unconventional" makes it sound perfectly O. K. There are, after all, unconventional houses, unconventional hairdos, even unconventional batting stances, all of which are fine. Houses, hairdos, and batting stances, however, have an independent existence apart from convention, whereas words are nothing but a convention— particular sounds which by agreement represent particular concepts, and (in the case of most written languages) particular symbols which by agreement represent particular sounds. Thus, when the Court admits that it is giving the word "revoke" an "unconventional" meaning, it says that it is choosing to ignore the word "revoke."
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