Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 787.0

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Unit: $U56

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712

JOHNSON v. UNITED STATES

Opinion of the Court

(1999) (following revocation of parole, Sentencing Commis-
sion will determine whether reparole is warranted); O’Neil,
supra, at 299; United States Parole Comm’n v. Williams, 54
F. 3d 820, 824 (CADC 1995) (noting “the established pre-
Guidelines sentencing principle that parole is available un-
less expressly precluded” (citation and internal quotation
marks omitted)).12 Thus, “revocation” of parole followed by
further imprisonment was not a mere termination of a lim-
ited liberty that a defendant could experience only once per
conviction, and it is fair to suppose that in the absence of any
textual bar “revocation” of parole’s replacement, supervised
release, was meant to leave open the possibility of further
supervised release, as well.

As seen already, “revoke” is no such bar, and we ﬁnd no
other. The proceeding that follows a violation of the condi-
tions of supervised release is not, to be sure, a precise reen-
actment of the initial sentencing. Section 3583(e)(3) limits
the possible prison term to the duration of the term of super-
vised release originally imposed.
(If less than the maximum
has been imposed, a court presumably may, before revoking
the term, extend it pursuant to § 3583(e)(2); this would allow
the term of imprisonment to equal the term of supervised
release authorized for the initial offense.) The new prison
term is limited further according to the gravity of the origi-
nal offense. See § 3583(e)(3). But nothing in these speciﬁc

analysis of supervised release drawn into question by the fact that courts
could not, for violations of probation, impose imprisonment followed by
probation. Probation, unlike supervised release, was an alternative to im-
prisonment. Courts did not have the power to impose both at the original
sentencing, so their inability to do so at subsequent sentencings is no
surprise.

12 The dissent seems to misconstrue our discussion of pre-Guidelines
practice, see post, at 724–726, claiming that the practice is unilluminating
because the possibility of parole inhered in any prison sentence. But our
point simply is that, metaphysics aside, Congress gave no indication that
it thought supervised release after reincarceration would be less valuable
than reparole after reincarceration had been.