In a notable decision on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court, by an 8-1 majority, determined that the Sentencing Reform Act does not provide for the automatic extension of a supervised release term due to an intervening state offense committed while the individual is evading authorities. Justice Samuel Alito stood alone in his dissent, viewing the whole discussion around “tolling” as unnecessary.

Justice Neil Gorsuch led the majority opinion, aligning with Isabel Rico, a repeat drug offender. Rico’s legal journey saw her in and out of prison, capped with a 3.5-year supervised release in 2017. However, she violated her conditions by relocating without informing her probation officer and subsequently committed state offenses related to driving and drug possession in 2021 and 2022. She was eventually apprehended by federal authorities in 2023.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had previously ruled that Rico’s new offenses during her time on the run resulted in her supervised release being “tolled,” implying it did not expire in June 2021 but extended until her capture two years later. This interpretation allowed a district judge to view her 2022 drug-related crime as a separate breach of supervised release, thereby imposing additional prison time and extending her supervised release term.

Justice Gorsuch and the majority identified “tolling” as a misleading legal term in this scenario, arguing that instead of pausing the supervised release, the 9th Circuit’s ruling effectively meant it continued as long as the individual evaded contact with their probation officer. Gorsuch clarified that this terminology warranted explanation.

Gorsuch elaborated, “In legal settings, the term ‘toll’ usually means a pause or stop. However, under the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation, a person who absconds does not stop or pause their obligations. Instead, they continue to be subject to the terms of their supervised release and can be penalized for any violations during their absence. The Ninth Circuit’s rule essentially extends the supervised release period beyond what a judge initially ordered.”

He further supported his stance by referencing numerous textual indicators within the Sentencing Reform Act that do not authorize automatic extensions of supervised release. Gorsuch noted an “anomaly” at the core of the government’s argument — the notion that Rico was simultaneously “on and off supervised release.”

“The government contends that Ms. Rico was not supervised from early 2018 until 2023 and, accordingly, should not have that period counted toward her term of supervised release,” the justice summed up. “But in the same breath, the government argues that her January 2021 state offenses and her January 2022 state drug offense count as federal violations because her term of supervised release continued to run during the entire length of her abscondment. In a very real sense, then, the government asks us to imagine that Ms. Rico was both off and on supervised release at the same time. Really, it is quite the puzzle.”

Alito found the situation puzzling for an entirely different reason, as Gorsuch recognized in a footnote at the end of the majority opinion. Handwaving away Alito’s account of what could have been as “not what happened,” Gorsuch slammed the dissent for “hardly” contesting the main textual point that the Sentencing Reform Act “does not authorize a rule automatically extending a defendant’s term of supervised release when the defendant absconds.”

“At bottom, then, and despite its insistence otherwise, the dissent believes those errors are harmless because, it says, the district court could have accounted for Ms. Rico’s January 2022 offense by a different means than the one it employed. We think it inappropriate to engage in that kind of speculation,” Gorsuch chided Alito.

Alito had plenty to say of his own, calling the case “much simpler” than Gorsuch and the seven other justices who joined him would make it, and making clear that he believes “no error” — not “harmless error” — occurred.

“[W]e have no need to consider whether petitioner’s term of supervised release was ‘tolled’ when she absconded and evaded supervision,” wrote the lone dissenter, sharply stating he was “bemused by the notion that petitioner was on supervised release when she was evading all supervision.”

“I suppose she was on ‘unsupervised supervised release,’” Alito cracked in a parenthetical. “And it seems strange to regard a crime committed after the expiration of ‘unsupervised supervised release’ as a non-event.”

Asserting that “the District Judge made no error at all,” the justice indicated that what Gorsuch saw as a “warranted” terminology note was more an introduction to a “pointless” debate.

“As I see it, however, the whole debate about whether petitioner’s term of supervised release continued to run or was ‘tolled’ while she was on the lam is pointless. The [Sentencing] Guidelines are merely advisory, and this Court has made it clear that a judge is allowed to impose a sentence outside the recommended Guidelines range,” Alito concluded. “That is what the judge did here[.]”