Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 800

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Unit: $U56

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Cite as: 529 U. S. 694 (2000)

725

Scalia, J., dissenting

practice, see Mistretta v. United States, 488 U. S. 361, 366
(1989) (describing the Act’s “sweeping reforms”); Gozlon-
Peretz v. United States, 498 U. S. 395, 407 (1991) (“Super-
vised release is a unique method of postconﬁnement super-
vision invented by the Congress for a series of sentencing
reforms”).6 The Court’s effort to equate parole and super-
vised release, ante, at 710–712, is unpersuasive. Unlike pa-
role, which replaced a portion of a defendant’s prison sen-
tence, supervised release is a separate term imposed at the
time of initial sentencing. Compare 18 U. S. C. § 3583(a)
with 18 U. S. C. §§ 4205(a), 4206 (1982 ed.) (repealed); see also
USSG ch. 7, pt. A, intro. comment. 2(b). This distinction has
important consequences for the present question, since when
parole was “revoked” (unlike when supervised release is
revoked), there was no need to impose a new term of
imprisonment; the term currently being served (on parole)
was still in place. Similarly, there was no occasion to impose
a new term of parole, since the possibility of parole was in-
herent in the remaining sentence. See 18 U. S. C. § 4205(a)
(1982 ed.) (“Whenever conﬁned and serving a deﬁnite term

6 United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual ch. 1, pt. A,
intro. comment. 3 (Nov. 1998) (USSG), is not to the contrary. The Court
quotes the comment for the broad proposition that “[t]he Sentencing
Guidelines, after all, ‘represent an approach that begins with, and builds
upon,’ pre-Guidelines law.” Ante, at 710. The comment itself, however,
makes the much more narrow point that data on sentences imposed pre-
Guidelines were used as a “starting point” in devising sentencing ranges
under the Guidelines. The sentence from which the Court quotes states:
“Despite . . . policy-oriented departures from pre-guidelines practice, the
guidelines represent an approach that begins with, and builds upon, empir-
ical data.” USSG ch. 1, pt. A, intro. comment. 3. This sheds no light on
the extent to which prior practice in matters other than length of sentence
underlay the Guidelines, much less on the extent to which such prior prac-
tice is a meaningful guide to statutory interpretation in general—and even
less to statutory interpretation pertaining to supervised release, which
the Guidelines elsewhere refer to as “a new form of post-imprisonment
supervision created by the Sentencing Reform Act,” id., ch. 7, pt. A, intro.
comment. 2(b).