Justice Alito Critiques Justice Gorsuch’s Commentary, Defends District Judge’s Decision as Accurate

In a significant decision on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded with an 8-1 vote that the Sentencing Reform Act does not permit the automatic extension of supervised release terms in federal cases due to subsequent state offenses committed while a person is evading authorities. Justice Samuel Alito stood alone in dissent, arguing that the entire discussion on “tolling” was unnecessary.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, aligned with Isabel Rico, a repeat offender with a history of drug-related crimes. Rico had previously served time, breached her supervised release conditions, was re-incarcerated, and left prison in late 2017 with an additional 3.5 years of supervised release. After relocating without informing her probation officer, she committed further state offenses in 2021 and 2022, leading to her federal re-arrest in 2023.

Gorsuch highlighted that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had determined that Rico’s 42-month supervised release was “tolled” due to her state offenses during her period of evasion, effectively extending it beyond its original June 2021 expiration until her capture two years later. This ruling enabled a district judge to treat Rico’s 2022 drug offense as a separate violation, resulting in more prison time and an extended supervised release.

The majority quickly dismissed the applicability of “tolling” in this scenario, asserting that the 9th Circuit’s interpretation did not pause Rico’s release term but rather ensured it continued as long as she was out of contact with her probation officer. Gorsuch emphasized the need for clarity in terminology.

“The term ‘toll’ in legal contexts usually implies a halt or interruption,” Gorsuch explained. “However, under the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, a defendant who is on the run doesn’t halt anything. Instead, they remain bound by the conditions of their supervised release and can be penalized for any violations committed while absconding. Ultimately, the Ninth Circuit’s rule effectively extends the supervised release period beyond what was initially ordered by the court,” Gorsuch concluded.

Citing an “array of textual clues” as proof of the point that the Sentencing Reform Act contains “nothing […] authorizing” automatic extensions of supervised release, Gorsuch next pointed out an “anomaly” at the “heart of the government’s theory” — the suggestion that Rico was “off and on supervised release at the same time.”

“The government contends that Ms. Rico was not supervised from early 2018 until 2023 and, accordingly, should not have that period counted toward her term of supervised release,” the justice summed up. “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.”

Alito found the situation puzzling for an entirely different reason, as Gorsuch recognized in a footnote at the end of the majority opinion. Handwaving away Alito’s account of what could have been as “not what happened,” Gorsuch slammed the dissent for “hardly” contesting the main textual point that the Sentencing Reform Act “does not authorize a rule automatically extending a defendant’s term of supervised release when the defendant absconds.”

“At bottom, then, and despite its insistence otherwise, the dissent believes those errors are harmless because, it says, the district court could have accounted 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,” Gorsuch chided Alito.

Alito had plenty to say of his own, calling the case “much simpler” than Gorsuch and the seven other justices who joined him would make it, and making clear that he believes “no error” — not “harmless error” — occurred.

“[W]e have no need to consider whether petitioner’s term of supervised release was ‘tolled’ when she absconded and evaded supervision,” wrote the lone dissenter, sharply stating he was “bemused by the notion that petitioner was on supervised release when she was evading all supervision.”

“I suppose she was on ‘unsupervised supervised release,’” Alito cracked in a parenthetical. “And it seems strange to regard a crime committed after the expiration of ‘unsupervised supervised release’ as a non-event.”

Asserting that “the District Judge made no error at all,” the justice indicated that what Gorsuch saw as a “warranted” terminology note was more an introduction to a “pointless” debate.

“As I see it, however, the whole debate about whether petitioner’s term of supervised release continued to run or was ‘tolled’ while she was on the lam is pointless. The [Sentencing] Guidelines are merely advisory, and this Court has made it clear that a judge is allowed to impose a sentence outside the recommended Guidelines range,” Alito concluded. “That is what the judge did here[.]”