Rico v. U.S.:  Supervised release term is not automatically extended when a person absconds

By Greg Mermelstein, Deputy Director & General Counsel, Missouri Public Defender

            A term of supervised release under the Sentencing Reform Act is not automatically extended when the person being supervised absconds, the U.S. Supreme Court held March 25 in Rico v. United States.

            Isabel Rico was serving a term of supervised release following a prison term.  The supervised release term would have expired in June 2021, but Rico absconded.

            While missing from supervised release, Rico committed a state drug offense in January 2022.

            After Rico was taken back into federal custody in 2023, the District Cout imposed additional imprisonment on her due to the January 2022 offense.

            Rico appealed.  She claimed the District Court had no authority to treat her January 2022 offense as an independent supervised release violation because her supervised release term had expired in June 2021.

            The Ninth Circuit affirmed.  It held Rico’s abscondment “tolled” the clock on her supervised release term, and the term continued to run until federal authorities arrested her in 2023.

            The Supreme Court granted cert. to resolve a circuit split on whether absconding automatically extends a term of supervised release.

Holding

            The Court reversed, in a 8-1 opinion by Justice Gorsuch.

            The text of the Sentencing Reform Act does not authorize automatic extension of a term of supervised release due to absconding, the Court said.

            The Act tells courts when a term of supervised release “must end”, the Court said.  The Ninth Circuit rule “risks flouting the Act by permitting courts to extend supervised release beyond even the maximum terms set by Congress.”

            Various sections of the Act authorize other extensions and tolling rules, but not the rule used by the Ninth Circuit, the Court said.

            Sec. 3583(i) allows a court to revoke supervised release after expiration of a supervised release term “if, before its expiration, a warrant or summons has been issued” for a supervised release violation. 

            “Here, then, the Act speaks directly to what a court may do after the expiration of a defendant’s judicially ordered term of supervised release”, the Court said.  “But (again) the Act bounds a court’s authority.”

            “A court may adjudicate only ‘matters arising before’ the expiration of the defendant’s term of supervised release”, the Court said.  “It may do so only if a warrant or summons issued during that term.”

            But “nothing in this provision allows a court to exceed statutory maximums”, the Court said.

            “The Ninth Circuit’s rule, meanwhile, blows past all those constraints, allowing courts to revoke supervised release for violations arising after the judicially decreed supervised release term expires – and sometimes even after the statutory maximum period – all without the necessary warrant or summons”, the Court said.

            If a defendant absconds from supervised release and commits more crimes, a court can send her back to prison and authorize more supervised release under the Act, the Court said. “The court can do all that, too, even after the defendant’s prescribed term of supervised release, so long as a warrant or summons issues beforehand.”

            “The Act thus already provides courts with many ways to ensure a defendant does not profit from a supervised release violation”, the Court concluded.  “But what the Act does not do is automatically extend the defendant’s period of supervised release beyond what a judge has ordered.”

            Justice Alito dissented.  He said it was unnecessary to decide the question the Court did because the Sentencing Guidelines already allow a judge to consider crimes a defendant commits after absconding from supervised release.