Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 791.0

529US3

Unit: $U56

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716

JOHNSON v. UNITED STATES

Scalia, J., dissenting

1992) (deﬁning “revoke” as “[t]o void or annul by recalling,
withdrawing, or reversing; cancel; rescind”). Under this
reading, the “revoked” term of supervised release is simply
canceled; and since there is no authorization for a new term
of supervised release to replace the one that has been re-
voked, additional supervised release is unavailable.

The Court is not content with this natural reading, how-
ever, and proceeds to adopt what it calls an “unconventional”
reading of “revoke,” ante, at 706, as meaning “to call or sum-
mon back” without annulling, ibid.1
It thereby concludes
that the revoked term of supervised release retains some
effect, and thus that additional supervised release may be
required after reimprisonment. The Court suggests that its
abandonment of ordinary meaning is justiﬁed by the text,
by congressional purpose, and by analogy to pre-Guidelines
practice regarding nondetentive monitoring. None of the
proffered reasons is convincing.

The Court claims textual support for its “unconventional”
reading in the fact that subsection (e)(3), at issue here, uses
the term “revoke,” while subsection (e)(1) uses the term
“terminate.” Since, the Court reasons, the two terms
should not be interpreted to have exactly the same meaning,
(1) the statute must intend a “less common” meaning of “re-
voke,” namely, “call back,” see ante, at 706, and n. 9; and (2)
this “less common” meaning authorizes the later imposition
of supervised release. Each part of this two-step analysis is
patently false.

1 Describing the Court’s reading as “unconventional” makes it sound per-
fectly O. K. There are, after all, unconventional houses, unconventional
hairdos, even unconventional batting stances, all of which are ﬁne.
Houses, hairdos, and batting stances, however, have an independent exist-
ence apart from convention, whereas words are nothing but a convention—
particular sounds which by agreement represent particular concepts, and
(in the case of most written languages) particular symbols which by agree-
ment represent particular sounds. Thus, when the Court admits that it
is giving the word “revoke” an “unconventional” meaning, it says that it
is choosing to ignore the word “revoke.”