Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 793

529US3

Unit: $U56

[09-28-01 09:22:19] PAGES PGT: OPIN

718

JOHNSON v. UNITED STATES

Scalia, J., dissenting

The ﬁrst step of the Court’s analysis—its inference that
the use of “terminate” in subsection (e)(1) requires its alter-
native meaning of “revoke” in subsection (e)(3)—is also
wrong because the alternative meaning that the Court posits
(“to call or summon back,” without the implication of annul-
ment, ante, at 706) is not merely (as the Court says) “less
common,” ante, at 706, n. 9; in the context that is relevant
here, it is utterly unheard of. One can “call or summon
back” a person or thing without implication of annulment,
but it is quite impossible to “call or summon back” an order
or decree without that implication—which is precisely why
the primary meaning of revoke has shifted from its root
meaning (“call or summon back”) to the meaning that it
bears in its most common context, i. e., when applied to or-
ders or decrees (“cancel or annul”). Of course the acid test
of whether a word can reasonably bear a particular meaning
is whether you could use the word in that sense at a cocktail
party without having people look at you funny. The Court’s
assigned meaning would surely fail that test, even late in the
evening. Try telling someone, “Though I do not cancel or
annul my earlier action, I revoke it.” The notion that Con-

§ 3583(g) prescribes just that. Further, § 3583(g) undermines the Court’s
argument that because § 3583(e)(3) authorizes the court to “revoke a term
of supervised release” and then to require “all or part of the term” to be
served in prison, the revoked term must retain some metaphysical vitality.
See ante, at 705–706. This is so because § 3583(g) provides that the court
shall “terminate the term of supervised release” (hence extinguishing it
even in the Court’s view), and yet goes on to provide that the court shall
require the defendant to serve at least one-third of “the term of super-
vised release” in prison. See infra, at 721. So on either the Court’s inter-
pretation of the difference between “terminate” and “revoke” or on mine,
the use of “terminate” in § 3583(g) was a mistake—which is why Congress
has since amended it to read “revoke.” See § 110505, 108 Stat. 2017. See
also Brief for United States 25, n. 20 (“Congress apprehended that the
term ‘terminate’ was inappropriate [in § 3583(g)]”).
If we both concede
it was a mistake, that leaves my explanation of the difference between
“terminate” in § 3583(e)(1) and “revoke” in § 3583(e)(3) uncontradicted.