Rico v. United States · ¶2

Held: The Sentencing Reform Act does not authorize a rule automatically extending a defendant's term of supervised release when the defendant absconds. Pp. 614–623. (a) What the Ninth Circuit's challenged rule really does is use a defendant's abscondment to extend (not toll) the period of supervised release 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 instructs 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…

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