(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2025 1
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
RICO v. UNITED STATES
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
No. 24–1056. Argued November 3, 2025—Decided March 25, 2026 A criminal defendant, on supervised release from federal prison, must comply with various conditions—both mandatory (commit no more crimes, see 18 U. S. C. §3583(d)) and discretionary (commonly, “report to a probation officer as directed” and “notify the probation officer promptly of any change in address,” §§3563(b)(15), (17)). Violating a prescribed condition may result in the revocation of supervised release and a return to prison, §3583(e)(3), as well as an additional “term of supervised release after imprisonment,” §3583(h). After petitioner Isabel Rico violated the terms of her supervised re- lease conditions, the judge revoked her release and ordered her to serve two months of additional imprisonment and a new 42-month term of supervised release set to expire in 2021. When released the second time, Ms. Rico again violated her conditions by changing her residence without notifying her probation officer. A warrant issued for her arrest, but federal authorities did not locate her until January 2023. As relevant here, during her abscondment, Ms. Rico committed a state law drug offense in January 2022, which resulted in a convic- tion. Back in federal district court, the judge treated Ms. Rico’s drug offense as a Grade A violation of her supervised release conditions and sentenced her to 16 months of incarceration followed by two more years of supervised release. Ms. Rico appealed, arguing that the district court lacked authority to treat her drug offense as a supervised release violation because that offense occurred after her supervised term ex- pired in June 2021. The Ninth Circuit disagreed, describing Ms. Rico’s abscondment as having “tolled” the clock so that her term continued to run until federal authorities caught up with her in 2023. Because of that, the Ninth Circuit held, Ms. Rico’s January 2022 drug offense could count as a violation of her federal supervised release. This Court 2 RICO v. UNITED STATES
granted certiorari to resolve a circuit split on whether abscondment automatically extends a term of supervised release. Held: The Sentencing Reform Act does not authorize a rule automatically extending a defendant’s term of supervised release when the defend- ant absconds. Pp. 4–12. (a) What the Ninth Circuit’s challenged rule really does is use a de- fendant’s abscondment to extend (not toll) the period of supervised re- lease beyond what a judge has ordered. Automatically extending a term of supervised release is not among the many tools the Sentencing Reform Act provides courts to address defendants who fail to report or otherwise violate their supervised release conditions. The Act in- structs that a term of supervised release starts “the day the person is released from imprisonment,” §3624(e), and generally sets maximum lengths at one, three, or five years depending on the severity of the underlying offense, §3583(b). Neither provision hints at an automatic extension rule, and the Ninth Circuit’s rule risks permitting courts to extend supervised release beyond the statutory maximums set by Con- gress. The Act also authorizes courts to revoke supervised release and impose additional imprisonment and supervised release for violations, but makes no mention of automatic extension for abscondment. Fur- ther, an automatic extension rule disregards the limits in the Act’s specific extension and tolling rules. Section 3583(e)(2) generally per- mits courts to extend supervised release only after holding a hearing and considering various sentencing factors, and not beyond statutory maximums or after the term has expired. Section 3583(i) allows revo- cation proceedings after a defendant’s term of supervised release has expired only for matters arising before expiration and only if a warrant or summons issued during the term. Section 3624(e) provides a true tolling rule, suspending supervised release during imprisonment of 30 consecutive days or more. The cumulative detail of these instructions strongly suggests the absence of anything like the Ninth Circuit’s rule is intentional rather than an oversight. Pp. 4–7. (b) The government’s arguments fail to support the Ninth Circuit’s rule. The government argues because supervision requires “observa- tion and direction,” see, e.g., §§3601, 3624(e), 3603(2), (3), and Ms. Rico received neither while absconding, she should receive no “credit” for that period. But the cited provisions merely describe the probation officer’s duties and indicate that supervision occurs only “during the term imposed” by the sentencing court, §§3601, 3624(e), which hurts rather than helps the government’s cause. Moreover, the govern- ment’s theory treats Ms. Rico as off and on supervised release at the same time. The government’s precedent arguments are also unconvincing. Mont v. United States, 587 U. S. 514, simply recognized that §3624(e)’s Cite as: 607 U. S. ___ (2026) 3
express terms suspend a defendant’s term during imprisonment for a separate state offense, which highlights the absence of anything like the Ninth Circuit’s rule. And United States v. Johnson, 529 U. S. 53, rejected an effort to adorn the Act with a rule Congress did not enact, much as the Court does today. The government’s common-law argument—that courts historically held an escaped time on the run from prison does not count toward discharge of a sentence—may rest on sound premises but reaches an unsound conclusion. The government seeks not a rule that stops the clock or ensures a defendant takes no advantage of abscondment, but one that imposes new punishment by automatically extending super- vised release. Unlike an escaped prisoner who is not serving his sen- tence, under the Ninth Circuit’s rule, a defendant who fails to report remains bound by release terms and may be punished for violations. The Act already provides many ways to ensure defendants do not profit from violations without automatically extending the period beyond what a judge ordered. Pp. 7–11. (c) The government’s policy plea—that §3583(i)’s warrant-or-sum- mons requirement may leave courts powerless when probation officers do not timely realize a defendant’s absence—is misdirected. The proper place to register that complaint is with Congress, as this Court is not free to rewrite the directions Congress has provided. P. 11. Reversed and remanded.
GORSUCH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, KAVANAUGH, BARRETT, and JACKSON, JJ., joined. ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion. Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 1
Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________
No. 24–1056 _________________
ISABEL RICO, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT [March 25, 2026]
JUSTICE GORSUCH delivered the opinion of the Court. Today, most criminal defendants sentenced to federal prison must also serve a term of supervised release. If a defendant on supervised release fails to report to his proba- tion officer, serious consequences can follow. This case poses a question about one of them. I Under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, supervised re- lease serves as a transitional period between incarceration and freedom. See Mont v. United States, 587 U. S. 514, 523 (2019). While on supervised release, a criminal defendant must comply with various conditions. Some of those condi- tions (like: commit no more crimes) are as mandatory as they are obvious. 18 U. S. C. §3583(d). Others may be im- posed at the discretion of the sentencing judge. Ibid. Com- mon discretionary conditions include “ ‘report[ing] to a pro- bation officer as directed’ ” and “ ‘notify[ing] the probation officer promptly of any change in address.’ ” Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Overview of Probation and Supervised Release Conditions 16, 24 (July 2024) (quoting §§3563(b)(15), (17)). Should a defendant violate any prescribed condition, whether mandatory or 2 RICO v. UNITED STATES
discretionary, a judge may revoke his release and order him returned to prison. §3583(e)(3). A judge may also require the defendant to serve an additional “term of supervised re- lease after [his] imprisonment.” §3583(h). Isabel Rico’s encounter with these rules is long and com- plex. In 2010, she pleaded guilty to federal drug trafficking charges and was sentenced to seven years in prison followed by four years of supervised release. App. to Pet. for Cert. 11a (App.); Brief for Petitioner 8. Only a few months after leaving prison in January 2017, Ms. Rico violated her su- pervised release conditions. As a result, the judge revoked her release, sent her back to prison for two months, and or- dered her to serve another 42-month term of supervised re- lease. App. 11a. Per the judge’s order, that new supervised release term was slated to expire in June 2021 (an im- portant date, as we will soon see). See ibid. Ms. Rico’s second stint on supervised release went no bet- ter than her first. Shortly after leaving prison in December 2017, she changed her residence without telling her proba- tion officer, once again violating a condition of her release. Ibid. In response, a judge issued a warrant for her arrest in May 2018. Id., at 12a. But federal authorities appar- ently didn’t catch up with her until January 2023. Id., at 3a. In between, too, it turned out that Ms. Rico committed new state-law offenses. In January 2021, authorities ar- rested her for evading police and driving without a license. And in January 2022, she was charged with possessing il- licit drugs for sale. Both sets of crimes resulted in convic- tions. Brief for Petitioner 9–10. Of course, Ms. Rico faced punishment for those offenses in state court. But what did they mean for her back in fed- eral court? Consulting the sentencing guidelines, the court held that Ms. Rico’s failure to report to her probation officer and her January 2021 offenses qualified as two independ- ent “Grade C violations” of her supervised release condi- tions, each carrying an advisory sentencing range of 8 to 14 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 3
months of imprisonment. App. 25a–32a. The court also held that Ms. Rico’s January 2022 drug offense amounted to a “Grade A violation,” with an associated advisory range of 33 to 36 months of imprisonment. Ibid. After considering these guidelines, and varying downward from them, the court sentenced Ms. Rico to another 16 months of incarcer- ation, followed by two more years of supervised release. Id., at 5a, 35a. Ms. Rico appealed that decision. Perhaps the district court could revoke her supervised release based on her fail- ure to report and her January 2021 offenses. Perhaps, as well, the district court could order her to serve 16 months in prison (after all, she committed two Grade C violations, each carrying an advisory sentence of 8 to 14 months) and a new term of supervised release. But, she insisted, the court had no lawful authority to treat her January 2022 state drug offense as an independent supervised release vi- olation. The court could not do so, Ms. Rico argued, because that offense occurred after her pre-existing term of federal supervised release expired in June 2021. The Ninth Circuit disagreed. Without question, Ms. Rico’s supervised release term was set to expire in June 2021 by court order. But, the Ninth Circuit reasoned, Ms. Rico’s abscondment “tolled” the clock so that her term con- tinued to run until federal authorities caught up with her in 2023. Id., at 3a. As a result, her January 2022 drug offense occurred while she was on supervised release. And because of that, the district court could treat that offense as a violation and revoke her supervised release based upon it. Ibid. We agreed to review this case to resolve a circuit split. 606 U. S. 930 (2025). Some circuits, like the Ninth, hold that a defendant’s failure to report doesn’t just amount to a punishable supervised release violation but also automati- cally extends his term of supervised release. Others disa- gree, taking Ms. Rico’s view that abscondment does not 4 RICO v. UNITED STATES
automatically extend a term of supervised release. Com- pare United States v. Crane, 979 F. 2d 687, 691 (CA9 1992); and United States v. Buchanan, 638 F. 3d 448, 458 (CA4 2011), with United States v. Hernandez-Ferrer, 599 F. 3d 63, 66–69 (CA1 2010); United States v. Talley, 83 F. 4th 1296, 1297 (CA11 2023). II In approaching this dispute, a preliminary note on termi- nology is warranted. The Ninth Circuit held that a defend- ant who absconds during supervised release “tolls” his ex- isting, judicially ordered term of supervised release until federal authorities find him. This is a misnomer. In legal settings, the word “toll” often denotes some stop or pause. See Artis v. District of Columbia, 583 U. S. 71, 80–82 (2018). But under the Ninth Circuit’s approach, a defendant who absconds stops or pauses nothing. Rather, he remains sub- ject to the conditions of his supervised release and can be held accountable for any violations he commits during his abscondment. What the Ninth Circuit’s rule really does is extend the period of supervised release beyond what a judge has ordered. On its view, an absconding defendant’s term of supervised release does not expire when a court has di- rected but continues to run so long as the defendant re- mains out of contact with his probation officer. A Whatever the wisdom of a policy like that, we see nothing in the law authorizing it. The Sentencing Reform Act pro- vides courts with many tools to address defendants who fail to report or otherwise violate their supervised release con- ditions. But automatically extending a term of supervised release is not among them. An array of textual clues proves the point. Start with what the Act says about when supervised re- lease begins and ends. The Act instructs that a term of Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 5
supervised release starts “the day the person is released from imprisonment.” §3624(e). The Act then tells us when a term of supervised release must end, generally setting its maximum length at one, three, or five years, depending on the severity of the defendant’s underlying offense. §3583(b). Neither provision hints at anything like the Ninth Circuit’s automatic extension rule. To the contrary, that rule risks flouting the Act by permitting courts to ex- tend supervised release beyond even the maximum terms set by Congress. Next, consider how the Act treats absconders. As a con- dition of supervised release, a court may order a defendant to report to a probation officer and inform authorities if he changes his residence. See §§3563(b)(15), (17). Should a defendant violate those (or any other) conditions, a court may (and sometimes must) revoke his supervised release and send him back to prison with a new term of supervised release to follow. §§3583(e)(3), (g). That the Act authorizes those potent tools for addressing absconders—but makes no mention of anything like the Ninth Circuit’s automatic ex- tension rule—is telling too. Relevant as well, the Act authorizes other extension and (true) tolling rules. Take a few examples. Section 3583(e)(2) permits a court to “extend a term of supervised release,” but only subject to important limitations. A court must generally hold a hearing and consider various sen- tencing factors. See §3583(e)(2); Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 32.1. A court cannot extend supervised release beyond the maxi- mum term set by statute. See §3583(e)(2). Nor may a court extend a term of supervised release if that term has already expired. See ibid.; Brief for United States 8, 38, 45. The Ninth Circuit’s automatic extension rule disregards not just one but each of these limits. Under its approach, no hearing is needed, a term of supervised release may extend beyond the statutory maximum, and a court-ordered expiration date becomes meaningless. 6 RICO v. UNITED STATES
Section 3583(i) also addresses extensions. It provides that a court’s power to revoke supervised release “extends beyond the expiration of the term of supervised release for any period reasonably necessary for the adjudication of matters arising before its expiration if, before its expiration, a warrant or summons has been issued on the basis of an allegation of such violation.” Here, then, the Act speaks di- rectly to what a court may do after the expiration of a de- fendant’s judicially ordered term of supervised release. But (again) the Act bounds a court’s authority. A court may ad- judicate only “matters arising before” the expiration of the defendant’s term of supervised release. It may do so only if a warrant or summons issued during that term. And noth- ing in this provision allows a court to exceed statutory max- imums. The Ninth Circuit’s rule, meanwhile, blows past all those constraints, allowing courts to revoke supervised re- lease for violations arising after the judicially decreed su- pervised release term expires—and sometimes even after the statutory maximum period—all without the necessity of a warrant or summons. If more evidence were needed to illustrate how unlikely the Ninth Circuit’s rule is, §3624(e) would supply it. That provision indicates that a “term of supervised release does not run during any period in which the person is imprisoned in connection with a conviction” for 30 consecutive days or more. This is a true tolling rule, one that stops the clock running on a defendant’s term of supervised release. Yet, like the Act’s extension rules, it is narrow in scope and noth- ing at all like the rule the Ninth Circuit has adopted. The quantity of all these instructions has a quality of its own, too. Cumulatively, the Act details how long super- vised release may run, the tools courts can use to address defendants who fail to report or commit other violations, when courts may extend and toll terms of supervised re- lease, and how they can go about addressing violations even after a term of supervised release has expired. To our eyes, Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 7
the absence of anything like the Ninth Circuit’s rule in all these exacting instructions is striking and strongly sugges- tive that the Ninth Circuit’s rule more nearly represents an adornment to Congress’s work than a permissible interpre- tation of it. B Seeking to persuade us otherwise, the government starts this way. Under §3601, it observes, a defendant on super- vised release “shall, during the term imposed, be supervised by a probation officer.” Many other provisions speak simi- larly. See, e.g., §§3603(2), (3), 3624(e). As a matter of ordi- nary meaning, the government submits, supervision “re- quires both observation and direction.” Brief for United States 12. Because Ms. Rico was subject to neither of those things from early 2018 until 2023, the government reasons, she should receive no “credit” for serving on supervised re- lease during that period. Ibid. And, as a result, the district court was within its rights to hold that she violated the terms of her supervised release when she committed her January 2022 drug offense. Id., at 18–23. If attractive at first blush, this line of reasoning suffers from a few underlying flaws. For one thing, the provisions the government cites do not outline anything like the Ninth Circuit’s automatic extension rule. Instead, they merely de- scribe the individual responsible for supervising the defend- ant—the probation officer—along with some of his duties. For another, to the extent these provisions speak about the length of supervised release at all, they indicate that a pro- bation officer shall supervise a defendant only “during the term imposed” by the sentencing court. See §§3601, 3624(e). And that limitation would seem to do more to hurt than help the government’s cause. For another thing still, an anomaly lies at the heart of the government’s theory. The government contends that Ms. Rico was not supervised from early 2018 until 2023 and, 8 RICO v. UNITED STATES
accordingly, should not have that period counted toward her term of supervised release. But in the same breath, the government argues that her January 2021 state offenses and her January 2022 state drug offense count as federal violations because her term of supervised release continued to run during the entire length of her abscondment. In a very real sense, then, the government asks us to imagine that Ms. Rico was both off and on supervised release at the same time. Really, it is quite the puzzle. If its arguments from statutory text fall short, the gov- ernment replies, its arguments from precedent fill the gap. In particular, the government suggests, our decisions in Mont and United States v. Johnson, 529 U. S. 53 (2000), re- quire us to adopt the Ninth Circuit’s rule. But here, too, we just don’t see it. Mont simply recognized that §3624(e)’s ex- press terms suspend (or truly toll) a defendant’s term of su- pervised release while he remains imprisoned for a sepa- rate state offense before trial. 587 U. S., at 521. And if that express tolling rule highlights anything, it is only, as we have seen, the absence of anything like the Ninth Circuit’s rule in the statutory text. See Part II–A, supra. Johnson is even further afield. There, the defendant re- mained in prison longer than he should have. 529 U. S., at 54. After realizing the mistake, the district court ordered the defendant’s release and instructed that he should begin serving his term of supervised release. Id., at 55. The de- fendant appealed a portion of that order, arguing that his term of supervised release should have started “when his lawful term of imprisonment expired.” Id., at 55–56. Ulti- mately, we rejected that argument, reasoning that the Act’s terms could not sustain it. Id., at 56–58. How any of that might require us to adopt the Ninth Circuit’s rule escapes us. Perhaps Johnson’s only relevance to this case lies in this parallel to our case: We proceed today much as we did there, rejecting yet one more effort to adorn the Act with a rule Congress could have adopted but did not enact. Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 9
Moving past our precedents, the government next ap- peals to the common law. For centuries, the government observes, common-law courts have held that the time be- tween a defendant’s escape from prison and his recapture generally does not count toward the discharge of his sen- tence. It is a rule, the government notes, premised on the commonsense view that an escapee should take no “ ‘man- ner of advantage from it.’ ” Brief for United States 25 (quot- ing 2 W. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown 200 (6th ed. 1788)). And it is a rule, the government says, we should assume Congress meant to carry forward under the Sentencing Re- form Act—and one that should ultimately lead us to adopt the Ninth Circuit’s rule. Brief for United States 29. The government’s premises here may be sound, but its conclusion is not. Congress may sometimes legislate against the backdrop of the common law. We can also as- sume for argument’s sake that the government is right about the common-law rule and courts generally paused the clock on a defendant’s sentence and its attendant conditions when he escaped from prison and remained at large. But, as we have seen, the government seeks a very different rule here. Its proposed rule does not stop any clock or merely ensure a defendant does not take advantage of his abscond- ment. It imposes a new punishment on him by automati- cally extending his term of supervised release. Look at it this way. When a prisoner escapes, he is in no sense serving his prison sentence. In contrast, when a de- fendant on supervised release fails to report, everyone agrees he remains bound by the terms of his release. That is why, for failing to report and any other violation he may commit during his judicially ordered term of supervised re- lease, a court may send a defendant to prison and authorize more supervised release yet. §3583(e)(3). The court can do all that, too, even after the defendant’s prescribed term of supervised release expires, so long as a warrant or sum- mons issues beforehand. §3583(i). The Act thus already 10 RICO v. UNITED STATES
provides courts with many ways to ensure a defendant does not profit from a supervised release violation. But what the Act does not do is automatically extend the defendant’s pe- riod of supervised release beyond what a judge has ordered. And that additional rule is hardly necessary to ensure that a defendant should take “no manner of advantage” from his abscondment. The government urges us to consider Anderson v. Corall, 263 U. S. 193 (1923). That case, the government insists, illustrates how background common-law principles should inform our understanding of the Act. In Corall, a federal court sentenced the defendant to prison, followed by a term of parole, a form of conditional release different from (but not wholly unlike) supervised release. Id., at 193–194. While the defendant was on parole, he committed a new state crime and was sentenced to state prison. Id., at 194. After his release, federal authorities revoked the defend- ant’s parole and returned him to federal prison. Id., at 194– 195. The defendant protested that his federal parole clock had expired while he was in state prison, but we disagreed. Instead, applying background common-law principles, we held that the defendant’s state confinement stopped the clock on his federal parole much as a prisoner’s escape stops the clock on his prison sentence. Id., at 196–197. We fail to see how any of this moves the needle. Corall might teach that, thanks to background common-law prin- ciples, a defendant’s federal parole clock stops running dur- ing his time in state prison. But what does that prove? When it comes to supervised release, as we have seen, Con- gress has already codified a similar rule, providing that a defendant’s incarceration for 30 days or more pauses his term of supervised release. §3624(e). And none of that means the government is entitled to an additional and very different rule that would automatically extend a defend- ant’s term of supervised release beyond what a court has ordered and possibly even beyond the statutory maximum. Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 11
Simply put, Corall did not even contemplate, let alone en- dorse, anything like the Ninth Circuit’s rule. In the end, the government is left to resort to a policy plea. The Act may supply courts with many tools to address absconding defendants. A court may even revoke a defend- ant’s supervised release after his judicially ordered term of supervised release has expired so long as a warrant or sum- mons issues before the term ends. See §3583(i). But in cases where a defendant absconds late in his supervised re- lease term, the government protests, a probation officer may not realize his absence in time to secure a warrant or summons, leaving a court powerless to address violations after the term expires. It’s a problem, the government in- sists, we should remedy by endorsing the Ninth Circuit’s rule. This plea is misdirected. If the government thinks §3583(i)’s warrant-or-summons requirement too demand- ing, the proper place to register that complaint is with those who drafted it. This Court is not free to rewrite the direc- tions Congress has provided. Nor is it clear to us, for that matter, how serious the government’s supposed problem is. Defendants may commit many violations late in their terms of supervised release. Some of those violations, like secre- tive or nascent criminal activities, may be difficult to detect. By comparison, a defendant’s failure to report to a proba- tion officer as instructed is presumably among the easiest violations for federal authorities to notice. So even if we had the authority to rewrite the law’s terms to address “late-in-term-and-difficult-to-detect-violations,” it is not clear why we would start with failure to report violations.* —————— *The dissent maintains that, even if Ms. Rico’s January 2022 offense did not qualify as an independent supervised release violation, the dis- trict court could have considered that offense under the Sentencing Re- form Act when fashioning an appropriate sentence for the violations she committed before June 2021. See post, at 1–4 (opinion of ALITO, J.). But that, of course, is not what happened. Instead, the district court treated 12 RICO v. UNITED STATES
* Because the Sentencing Reform Act does not authorize the rule the Court of Appeals adopted and the government advances, the judgment of the Ninth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.
—————— Ms. Rico’s January 2022 offense as an independent supervised release violation. And the Ninth Circuit affirmed that decision based on its “toll- ing” rule. As we have explored (and the dissent hardly contests), those decisions are inconsistent with the Act’s terms. At bottom, then, and despite its insistence otherwise, post, at 4, n. 2, the dissent believes those errors are harmless because, it says, the district court could have ac- counted for Ms. Rico’s January 2022 offense by a different means than the one it employed. We think it inappropriate to engage in that kind of speculation. The Ninth Circuit decision under review never addressed the question of harmless error. Nor does the government press a harm- less-error argument before us. In these circumstances, it is “normal practice” to leave any question about harmless error for resolution on remand “in the first instance.” Neder v. United States, 527 U. S. 1, 25 (1999). No sound reason exists to deviate from that practice here. Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 1
ALITO, J., dissenting
ISABEL RICO, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT [March 25, 2026]
JUSTICE ALITO, dissenting. This case is much simpler than the Court’s opinion sug- gests, and we have no need to consider whether petitioner’s term of supervised release was “tolled” when she absconded and evaded supervision. I I will start with what is undisputed. In December 2017, petitioner began a 42-month term of supervised release and, during that time, was required not to use illegal drugs or commit any other crimes and was ordered to notify her probation officer if her address changed. In May 2018, she moved without telling her probation officer, and a warrant was issued for her arrest. She remained a fugitive until January 2023, but during the intervening months, she com- mitted three state-law criminal offenses, including a drug crime in January 2022. The sentencing judge, exercising his authority under 18 U. S. C. §§3583(e)(3) and (h), re- voked petitioner’s term of supervised release, sent her back to prison for 16 months, and required her to serve a new 2- year term of supervised release after her release from con- finement. In determining the length of petitioner’s new term of im- prisonment, the judge turned first to the Sentencing Guide- lines. Without the January 2022 drug offense, the sentenc- ing range recommended by the Guidelines was 8 to 14 2 RICO v. UNITED STATES
months, but with the drug offense the range jumped to 33 to 36 months. The judge started with the higher range, but he made a large downward “variance” and set her sentence at 16 months, just 2 months longer than the top of the range that would have applied if the drug offense were disre- garded. II The question before us is whether the sentencing judge’s consideration of the drug offense was lawful, and based on the terms of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, it clearly was. Under 18 U. S. C. §3583(e), the judge was permitted to take into account most of the factors set out in §3553(a), and several of those factors permitted consideration of the January 2022 drug crime. For example, imprisoning peti- tioner for 16 months could deter her from committing crim- inal offenses, including drug crimes, during and after her new 2-year term of supervised release. See §3553(a)(2)(B). The 16-month term could also deter others from violating supervised release and committing serious crimes. See ibid. And by confining petitioner for 16 months, the sen- tence protected the public from crimes that petitioner, a se- rial recidivist, might have committed if she were not in prison. See §3553(a)(2)(C).1 Although the Sentencing Reform Act plainly authorized the sentencing judge to consider the January 2022 drug of- fense, petitioner challenges her sentence based on her in- terpretation of the Sentencing Guidelines. That argument should be rejected for at least two reasons. First, the Sen- tencing Commission cannot take away important authority that the Sentencing Reform Act unequivocally gives to —————— 1 Even petitioner concedes that the “supervisee’s conduct after the ex-
piration of the term can still be considered by the sentencing court as part of the relevant 18 U. S. C. §3553(a) analysis when selecting the ap- propriate revocation sentence.” Brief for Petitioner 46 (emphasis in orig- inal). Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 3
district courts. Second, the Sentencing Guidelines, properly read, do not prevent a judge from considering all crimes that a prisoner commits after absconding from su- pervised release. Petitioner’s contrary argument rests on what she under- stands to be the combined operation of several provisions of the Sentencing Guidelines. At the time of her sentencing, §7B1.1 set out several grades of supervised released viola- tions, ranging from Grade A for the worst transgressions (including drug felonies) to Grade C for the least serious. United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual §7B1.1 (Nov. 2023). Section 7B1.4(a) provided recom- mended ranges of imprisonment for each violation grade. Petitioner contends that a supervised release violation is one that occurs while a prisoner is on supervised release and that she was no longer on supervised release when she committed the drug crime in January 2022 because her term of supervised release continued to run while she was a fugitive and thus expired in 2021. As a result, she main- tains, the drug offense should not have been considered in calculating the sentence recommended by the Guidelines. I am bemused by the notion that petitioner was on super- vised release when she was evading all supervision. (I sup- pose she was on “unsupervised supervised release.”) And it seems strange to regard a crime committed after the expi- ration of “unsupervised supervised release” as a non-event. By that logic, if petitioner had gone on a murder spree after the expiration of the period of unsupervised supervised re- lease, the sentencing judge would have been required to put that out of his mind. As I see it, however, the whole debate about whether pe- titioner’s term of supervised release continued to run or was “tolled” while she was on the lam is pointless. The Guide- lines are merely advisory, and this Court has made it clear that a judge is allowed to impose a sentence outside the rec- ommended Guidelines range when that range “fails 4 RICO v. UNITED STATES
properly to reflect §3553(a) considerations.” Rita v. United States, 551 U. S. 338, 351 (2007). That is what the judge did here, and it makes no differ- ence that he started with the 33-to-36-month range and then varied downward to 16 months instead of starting with the lower range of 8 to 14 months and varying upward by 2 months based on the drug crime. Not only was this permitted by the Guidelines, but the judge stated that Rico’s sentence was imposed “regardless of the applicable sentencing guideline range.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 35a. By taking petitioner’s January 2022 drug crime into account in this way, the judge acted in conformity with the Sentencing Reform Act, the Sentencing Guidelines, and the authority that this Court recognized in Rita.2 I would therefore affirm.
—————— 2 Contrary to the Court’s argument, see ante, at 11, n., I do not contend
that we should affirm based on harmless error. Rather, the District Judge made no error at all.