Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 132

529US1

Unit: $U33

[10-04-01 09:21:43] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 53 (2000)

57

Opinion of the Court

vised release or parole for another offense to which the
person is subject or becomes subject during the term
of supervised release. A term of supervised release
does not run during any period in which the person is
imprisoned in connection with a conviction for a Federal,
State, or local crime unless the imprisonment is for a
period of less than 30 consecutive days.”

The quoted language directs that a supervised release
term does not commence until an individual “is released
from imprisonment.” There can be little question about
the meaning of the word “release” in the context of im-
prisonment.
It means “[t]o loosen or destroy the force of;
to remove the obligation or effect of; hence to alleviate
or remove;
. [t]o let loose again; to set free from re-
straint, conﬁnement, or servitude; to set at liberty; to let go.”
Webster’s New International Dictionary 2103 (2d ed. 1949).
As these deﬁnitions illustrate, the ordinary, commonsense
meaning of release is to be freed from conﬁnement. To say
respondent was released while still imprisoned diminishes
the concept the word intends to convey.

.

.

The ﬁrst sentence of § 3624(e) supports our construction.
A term of supervised release comes “after imprisonment,”
once the prisoner is “released by the Bureau of Prisons to
the supervision of a probation ofﬁcer.” Supervised release
does not run while an individual remains in the custody of
the Bureau of Prisons. The phrase “on the day the person
is released,” in the second sentence of § 3624(e), suggests a
strict temporal interpretation, not some ﬁctitious or con-
structive earlier time. The statute does not say “on the
day the person is released or on the earlier day when he
should have been released.”
Indeed, the third sentence
admonishes that “supervised release does not run during any
period in which the person is imprisoned.”

The statute does provide for concurrent running of super-
vised release in speciﬁc cases. After the operative phrase
“released from imprisonment,” § 3624(e) requires the con-