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JOHNSON v. UNITED STATES

Opinion of the Court

of supervised release “imposes punishment for defendants’
new offenses for violating the conditions of their supervised
release.” United States v. Page, 131 F. 3d 1173, 1176 (1997).
On this theory, that is, if the violation of the conditions of
supervised release occurred after the enactment of § 3583(h),
as Johnson’s did, the new law could be given effect without
applying it to events before its enactment.

While this understanding of revocation of supervised re-
lease has some intuitive appeal, the Government disavows it,
and wisely so in view of the serious constitutional questions
that would be raised by construing revocation and reimpris-
onment as punishment for the violation of the conditions of
supervised release. Although such violations often lead to
reimprisonment, the violative conduct need not be criminal
and need only be found by a judge under a preponderance of
the evidence standard, not by a jury beyond a reasonable
(1988 ed., Supp. V).
doubt. See 18 U. S. C. § 3583(e)(3)
Where the acts of violation are criminal in their own right,
they may be the basis for separate prosecution, which would
raise an issue of double jeopardy if the revocation of super-
vised release were also punishment for the same offense.
Treating postrevocation sanctions as part of the penalty for
the initial offense, however (as most courts have done),
avoids these difﬁculties. See, e. g., United States v. Wyatt,
102 F. 3d 241, 244–245 (CA7 1996) (rejecting double jeopardy
challenge on ground that sanctions for violating the condi-
tions of supervised release are part of the original sentence);
United States v. Beals, 87 F. 3d 854, 859–860 (CA7 1996) (not-
ing that punishment for noncriminal violations must be justi-
ﬁed by reference to original crimes), overruled on other
grounds, United States v. Withers, 128 F. 3d 1167 (1997);
United States v. Meeks, 25 F. 3d 1117, 1123 (CA2 1994) (not-
ing absence of constitutional procedural protections in revo-
cation proceedings). Cf. Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U. S. 778,
782 (1973) (“Probation revocation . . . is not a stage of a crimi-