On the Lam from Supervised Release Still Runs Out the Clock, SCOTUS Says – Update for March 30, 2026

We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

BEAT FEET

Isabel Rico has traveled a rocky road. Her federal drug trafficking sentence ended in 2018, but her 48-month supervised release term was revoked pretty quickly for some transgression not recounted in court records. She served two months in prison for that and, upon release, faced another 46 months of supervised release time.

Izzy did no better on that second supervised release stint. At some point, she decided to “beat feet,” moving without telling her Probation Officer and no longer bothering to make monthly visits to the Probation Office. Her disappearing act prompted the judge to issue a revocation warrant. But the warrant went unserved because Izzy could not be found. She thus became an “absconder.”

While wild and free, Izzy got picked up by local police for possession of drugs and fleeing the cops. When her federal Probation Officer finally caught up with her, Izzy was hauled into court for the revocation warrant.

The failure to report her new address was a mere Grade C supervised release violation, which would net her only 8 – 14 months of additional prison time. The fleeing offense likewise was just a Grade C violation. But the drug possession charge was a Grade A violation, with a Guidelines sentencing range of 33-36 months.

The rub: While Izzy was off the grid, that is, an “absconder,” her supervised release term expired. The fleeing and drug possession charges both happened after her supervised release ended. When the district court sentenced her to 16 months in prison for all three supervised release violations, Izzy argued that the fleeing and drug possession couldn’t count because they happened after her supervised release ended.

The district court disagreed. It held that while Izzy was in “absconder” status, her supervised release was tolled, that is, on hold. The clock only started running again when she was found and served with her revocation warrant.

Izzy appealed, but the 9^th Circuit agreed with the district court in a terse opinion.

Last week, the Supreme Court reversed.

By an 8-1 decision, SCOTUS held that while the 9^th Circuit may think absconding “tolls” supervised release, what it was really saying was that absconding automatically extended supervised release beyond the term imposed by the judge, something that Congress did not provide for in the Sentencing Reform Act’s carefully detailed scheme.

True tolling, the Supremes said, pauses the running of a term, but the 9^th Circuit’s approach wants it both ways. It stops the running of supervised release but holds that the defendant is still under supervision and subject to punishment. This, Justice Gorsuch wrote for the 8-1 majority, is not a pause in the supervised release but rather an automatic extension of the term (and the defendant’s exposure to revocation).

The Court anchored its analysis in the clear statutory language of the Act. Under 18 USC 3624(e), supervised release begins “the day the person is released from imprisonment. Section 3583(b) provides that supervised releaselasts for a set term of years, depending on the underlying offense. SCOTUS found “no hint” of an abscondment-based automatic extension, observing that the risk of such a court-made rule would be to let supervised releaseterms exceed statutory maximums. What’s more, the supervised release statute provides for precisely crafted sanctions for violations. Adding an unlisted additional consequence — automatic term extension — would be an unauthorized judicial supplement, the Court ruled.

The supervised release statute allows a district court to extend a period of supervision, but only after a defendant receives a hearing. While a district court can hold a revocation hearing after the supervised release term expires, it can do so only for “matters arising before its expiration” and only if a warrant or summons was issued before expiration. Finally, the fact that the statute provides that the supervised release term “does not run” during imprisonment of 30 consecutive days or more in connection with a conviction, suggests that Congress intended to address when supervised release tolls and when it does not. “To our eyes,” Gorsuch wrote, “the absence of anything like the Ninth Circuit’s rule in all these exacting instructions is striking and strongly suggestive that the Ninth Circuit’s rule more nearly represents an adornment to Congress’s work than a permissible interpretation of it.

Rico suggests prosecutors and probation offices will need to ensure timely issuance of a warrant or summons before a term expires if they wish to preserve revocation jurisdiction for violations “arising before” expiration. That could lead to more supervised release violator warrants being issued in a post-sentencing regime that already “violates” too many people.

Rico v US, Case No. 24-1056, 2026 U.S. LEXIS 1490 (March 25, 2026)

~ Thomas L. Root