Opinion ID: 195088
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Avoiding Illogical Results. It is also an

Text: 2. Avoiding Illogical Results. established canon of statutory construction that a legislature's words should never be given a meaning that produces a stunningly counterintuitive result at least if those words, read without undue straining, will bear another, less jarring meaning. See Kelly v. United States, 924 F.2d 355, 361 (1st Cir. 1991); United States v. Meyer, 808 F.2d 912, 919 (1st Cir. 1987); Sutherland 3This intuition was vindicated by Congress and the Sentencing Commission when, effective November 1, 1991, the phrase other than imprisonment was changed to read below the applicable guideline range. See U.S.S.G. App. C, Amend. 386 (Nov. 1991). 13 Stat. Const. 45.12 (5th ed.). This principle goes back to the early days of the Republic. See M'Culloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316, 355 (1819). In this case, the sentencing rule that emerges from a narrow reading of section 3583(e)(3) is surpassingly difficult to defend from a policy perspective. It is hard to conceive any logical reason why Congress might authorize sentencing an offender to a non-mandatory term of imprisonment, variable in the judge's discretion, upon revocation of a term of supervised release, but would, at the same time, withhold authority to impose a sentence of equivalent duration upon more lenient conditions. See Williams, 2 F.3d at 365; Schrader, 973 F.2d at 625. Although we could jury-rig a legislative justification for so cramped an interpretation of the law, we think it is selfevident that barring judges from reimposing supervision following revocation needlessly inhibits the court's sentencing options while at the same time failing to advance any of the fundamental goals of criminal sentencing.4 As a matter of policy, then, the implications for sentencing inherent in a stingy reading of the SRR provision go a long way toward convincing us that Congress could not have favored (or intended to compel) such a reading.