Cite as: 529 U. S. 694 (2000)
Scalia, J., dissenting
practice, see Mistretta v. United States, 488 U. S. 361, 366 (1989) (describing the Act's "sweeping reforms"); GozlonPeretz v. United States, 498 U. S. 395, 407 (1991) ("Supervised release is a unique method of postconfinement supervision invented by the Congress for a series of sentencing reforms").6 The Court's effort to equate parole and supervised release, ante, at 710-712, is unpersuasive. Unlike parole, which replaced a portion of a defendant's prison sentence, supervised release is a separate term imposed at the time of initial sentencing. Compare 18 U. S. C. § 3583(a) with 18 U. S. C. §§ 4205(a), 4206 (1982 ed.) (repealed); see also USSG ch. 7, pt. A, intro. comment. 2(b). This distinction has important consequences for the present question, since when parole was "revoked" (unlike when supervised release is revoked), there was no need to impose a new term of imprisonment; the term currently being served (on parole) was still in place. Similarly, there was no occasion to impose a new term of parole, since the possibility of parole was inherent in the remaining sentence. See 18 U. S. C. § 4205(a) (1982 ed.) ("Whenever confined and serving a definite term
6 United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual ch. 1, pt. A, intro. comment. 3 (Nov. 1998) (USSG), is not to the contrary. The Court quotes the comment for the broad proposition that "[t]he Sentencing Guidelines, after all, 'represent an approach that begins with, and builds upon,' pre-Guidelines law." Ante, at 710. The comment itself, however, makes the much more narrow point that data on sentences imposed pre-Guidelines were used as a "starting point" in devising sentencing ranges under the Guidelines. The sentence from which the Court quotes states: "Despite . . . policy-oriented departures from pre-guidelines practice, the guidelines represent an approach that begins with, and builds upon, empirical data." USSG ch. 1, pt. A, intro. comment. 3. This sheds no light on the extent to which prior practice in matters other than length of sentence underlay the Guidelines, much less on the extent to which such prior practice is a meaningful guide to statutory interpretation in general—and even less to statutory interpretation pertaining to supervised release, which the Guidelines elsewhere refer to as "a new form of post-imprisonment supervision created by the Sentencing Reform Act," id., ch. 7, pt. A, intro. comment. 2(b).
725
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