Rico v. United States

1 (Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2025
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
RICO v. UNITED STATES
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE NINTH CIRCUIT
No. 24–1056. Argued November 3, 2025—Decided March 25, 2026
A criminal defendant, on supervised release from federal prison, must
comply with various conditions—both mandatory (commit no more
crimes, see 18 U. S. C. §3583(d)) and discretionary (commonly, “report
to a probation officer as directed” and “notify the probation officer
promptly of any change in address,” §§3563(b)(15), (17)). Violating a
prescribed condition may result in the revocation of supervised release
and a return to prison, §3583(e)(3), as well as an additional “term of
supervised release after imprisonment,” §3583(h).
After petitioner Isabel Rico violated the terms of her supervised re-
lease conditions, the judge revoked her release and ordered her to
serve two months of additional imprisonment and a new 42-month
term of supervised release set to expire in 2021. When released the
second time, Ms. Rico again violated her conditions by changing her
residence without notifying her probation officer. A warrant issued for
her arrest, but federal authorities did not locate her until January
2023. As relevant here, during her abscondment, Ms. Rico committed
a state law drug offense in January 2022, which resulted in a convic-
tion. Back in federal district court, the judge treated Ms. Rico’s drug
offense as a Grade A violation of her supervised release conditions and
sentenced her to 16 months of incarceration followed by two more years
of supervised release. Ms. Rico appealed, arguing that the district
court lacked authority to treat her drug offense as a supervised release
violation because that offense occurred after her supervised term ex-
pired in June 2021. The Ninth Circuit disagreed, describing Ms. Rico’s
abscondment as having “tolled” the clock so that her term continued to
run until federal authorities caught up with her in 2023. Because of
that, the Ninth Circuit held, Ms. Rico’s January 2022 drug offense
could count as a violation of her federal supervised release. This Court

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2 RICO v. UNITED STATES
Syllabus
granted certiorari to resolve a circuit split on whether abscondment
automatically extends a term of supervised release.
Held: The Sentencing Reform Act does not authorize a rule automatically
extending a defendant’s term of supervised release when the defend-
ant absconds. Pp. 4–12.
(a) What the Ninth Circuit’s challenged rule really does is use a de-
fendant’s abscondment to extend (not toll) the period of supervised re-
lease beyond what a judge has ordered. Automatically extending a
term of supervised release is not among the many tools the Sentencing
Reform Act provides courts to address defendants who fail to report or
otherwise violate their supervised release conditions. The Act in-
structs that a term of supervised release starts “the day the person is
released from imprisonment,” §3624(e), and generally sets maximum
lengths at one, three, or five years depending on the severity of the
underlying offense, §3583(b). Neither provision hints at an automatic
extension rule, and the Ninth Circuit’s rule risks permitting courts to
extend supervised release beyond the statutory maximums set by Con-
gress. The Act also authorizes courts to revoke supervised release and
impose additional imprisonment and supervised release for violations,
but makes no mention of automatic extension for abscondment. Fur-
ther, an automatic extension rule disregards the limits in the Act’s
specific extension and tolling rules. Section 3583(e)(2) generally per-
mits courts to extend supervised release only after holding a hearing
and considering various sentencing factors, and not beyond statutory
maximums or after the term has expired. Section 3583(i) allows revo-
cation proceedings after a defendant’s term of supervised release has
expired only for matters arising before expiration and only if a warrant
or summons issued during the term. Section 3624(e) provides a true
tolling rule, suspending supervised release during imprisonment of 30
consecutive days or more. The cumulative detail of these instructions
strongly suggests the absence of anything like the Ninth Circuit’s rule
is intentional rather than an oversight. Pp. 4–7.
(b) The government’s arguments fail to support the Ninth Circuit’s
rule. The government argues because supervision requires “observa-
tion and direction,” see, e.g., §§3601, 3624(e), 3603(2), (3), and Ms. Rico
received neither while absconding, she should receive no “credit” for
that period. But the cited provisions merely describe the probation
officer’s duties and indicate that supervision occurs only “during the
term imposed” by the sentencing court, §§3601, 3624(e), which hurts
rather than helps the government’s cause. Moreover, the govern-
ment’s theory treats Ms. Rico as off and on supervised release at the
same time.
The government’s precedent arguments are also unconvincing.
Mont v. United States, 587 U. S. 514, simply recognized that §3624(e)’s

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Syllabus
express terms suspend a defendant’s term during imprisonment for a
separate state offense, which highlights the absence of anything like
the Ninth Circuit’s rule. And United States v. Johnson, 529 U. S. 53,
rejected an effort to adorn the Act with a rule Congress did not enact,
much as the Court does today.
The government’s common-law argument—that courts historically
held an escaped time on the run from prison does not count toward
discharge of a sentence—may rest on sound premises but reaches an
unsound conclusion. The government seeks not a rule that stops the
clock or ensures a defendant takes no advantage of abscondment, but
one that imposes new punishment by automatically extending super-
vised release. Unlike an escaped prisoner who is not serving his sen-
tence, under the Ninth Circuit’s rule, a defendant who fails to report
remains bound by release terms and may be punished for violations.
The Act already provides many ways to ensure defendants do not profit
from violations without automatically extending the period beyond
what a judge ordered. Pp. 7–11.
(c) The government’s policy plea—that §3583(i)’s warrant-or-sum-
mons requirement may leave courts powerless when probation officers
do not timely realize a defendant’s absence—is misdirected. The
proper place to register that complaint is with Congress, as this Court
is not free to rewrite the directions Congress has provided. P. 11.
Reversed and remanded.
G ORSUCH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS,
C. J., and THOMAS, S OTOMAYOR , KAGAN, K AVANAUGH, BARRETT, and
JACKSON, JJ., joined. ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion.

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1 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026)
Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of
Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543,
pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 24–1056
ISABEL RICO, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
[March 25, 2026]
J USTICE GORSUCH delivered the opinion of the Court.
Today, most criminal defendants sentenced to federal
prison must also serve a term of supervised release. If a
defendant on supervised release fails to report to his proba-
tion officer, serious consequences can follow. This case
poses a question about one of them.
I
Under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, supervised re-
lease serves as a transitional period between incarceration
and freedom. See Mont v. United States, 587 U. S. 514, 523
(2019). While on supervised release, a criminal defendant
must comply with various conditions. Some of those condi-
tions (like: commit no more crimes) are as mandatory as
they are obvious. 18 U. S. C. §3583(d). Others may be im-
posed at the discretion of the sentencing judge. Ibid. Com-
mon discretionary conditions include “ ‘report[ing] to a pro-
bation officer as directed’ ” and “ ‘notify[ing] the probation
officer promptly of any change in address.’ ” Administrative
Office of the United States Courts, Overview of Probation
and Supervised Release Conditions 16, 24 (July 2024)
(quoting §§3563(b)(15), (17)). Should a defendant violate
any prescribed condition, whether mandatory or

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2 RICO v. UNITED STATES
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discretionary, a judge may revoke his release and order him
returned to prison. §3583(e)(3). A judge may also require
the defendant to serve an additional “term of supervised re-
lease after [his] imprisonment.” §3583(h).
Isabel Rico’s encounter with these rules is long and com-
plex. In 2010, she pleaded guilty to federal drug trafficking
charges and was sentenced to seven years in prison followed
by four years of supervised release. App. to Pet. for Cert.
11a (App.); Brief for Petitioner 8. Only a few months after
leaving prison in January 2017, Ms. Rico violated her su-
pervised release conditions. As a result, the judge revoked
her release, sent her back to prison for two months, and or-
dered her to serve another 42-month term of supervised re-
lease. App. 11a. Per the judge’s order, that new supervised
release term was slated to expire in June 2021 (an im-
portant date, as we will soon see). See ibid.
Ms. Rico’s second stint on supervised release went no bet-
ter than her first. Shortly after leaving prison in December
2017, she changed her residence without telling her proba-
tion officer, once again violating a condition of her release.
Ibid. In response, a judge issued a warrant for her arrest
in May 2018. Id., at 12a. But federal authorities appar-
ently didn’t catch up with her until January 2023. Id., at
3a. In between, too, it turned out that Ms. Rico committed
new state-law offenses. In January 2021, authorities ar-
rested her for evading police and driving without a license.
And in January 2022, she was charged with possessing il-
licit drugs for sale. Both sets of crimes resulted in convic-
tions. Brief for Petitioner 9–10.
Of course, Ms. Rico faced punishment for those offenses
in state court. But what did they mean for her back in fed-
eral court? Consulting the sentencing guidelines, the court
held that Ms. Rico’s failure to report to her probation officer
and her January 2021 offenses qualified as two independ-
ent “Grade C violations” of her supervised release condi-
tions, each carrying an advisory sentencing range of 8 to 14

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Opinion of the Court
months of imprisonment. App. 25a–32a. The court also
held that Ms. Rico’s January 2022 drug offense amounted
to a “Grade A violation,” with an associated advisory range
of 33 to 36 months of imprisonment. Ibid. After considering
these guidelines, and varying downward from them, the
court sentenced Ms. Rico to another 16 months of incarcer-
ation, followed by two more years of supervised release. Id.,
at 5a, 35a.
Ms. Rico appealed that decision. Perhaps the district
court could revoke her supervised release based on her fail-
ure to report and her January 2021 offenses. Perhaps, as
well, the district court could order her to serve 16 months
in prison (after all, she committed two Grade C violations,
each carrying an advisory sentence of 8 to 14 months) and
a new term of supervised release. But, she insisted, the
court had no lawful authority to treat her January 2022
state drug offense as an independent supervised release vi-
olation. The court could not do so, Ms. Rico argued, because
that offense occurred after her pre-existing term of federal
supervised release expired in June 2021.
The Ninth Circuit disagreed. Without question, Ms.
Rico’s supervised release term was set to expire in June
2021 by court order. But, the Ninth Circuit reasoned, Ms.
Rico’s abscondment “tolled” the clock so that her term con-
tinued to run until federal authorities caught up with her
in 2023. Id., at 3a. As a result, her January 2022 drug
offense occurred while she was on supervised release. And
because of that, the district court could treat that offense as
a violation and revoke her supervised release based upon it.
Ibid.
We agreed to review this case to resolve a circuit split.
606 U. S. 930 (2025). Some circuits, like the Ninth, hold
that a defendant’s failure to report doesn’t just amount to a
punishable supervised release violation but also automati-
cally extends his term of supervised release. Others disa-
gree, taking Ms. Rico’s view that abscondment does not

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4 RICO v. UNITED STATES
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automatically extend a term of supervised release. Com-
pare United States v. Crane, 979 F. 2d 687, 691 (CA9 1992);
and United States v. Buchanan, 638 F. 3d 448, 458 (CA4
2011), with United States v. Hernandez-Ferrer, 599 F. 3d
63, 66–69 (CA1 2010); United States v. Talley, 83 F. 4th
1296, 1297 (CA11 2023).
II
In approaching this dispute, a preliminary note on termi-
nology is warranted. The Ninth Circuit held that a defend-
ant who absconds during supervised release “tolls” his ex-
isting, judicially ordered term of supervised release until
federal authorities find him. This is a misnomer. In legal
settings, the word “toll” often denotes some stop or pause.
See Artis v. District of Columbia, 583 U. S. 71, 80–82 (2018).
But under the Ninth Circuit’s approach, a defendant who
absconds stops or pauses nothing. Rather, he remains sub-
ject to the conditions of his supervised release and can be
held accountable for any violations he commits during his
abscondment. What the Ninth Circuit’s rule really does is
extend the period of supervised release beyond what a judge
has ordered. On its view, an absconding defendant’s term
of supervised release does not expire when a court has di-
rected but continues to run so long as the defendant re-
mains out of contact with his probation officer.
A
Whatever the wisdom of a policy like that, we see nothing
in the law authorizing it. The Sentencing Reform Act pro-
vides courts with many tools to address defendants who fail
to report or otherwise violate their supervised release con-
ditions. But automatically extending a term of supervised
release is not among them. An array of textual clues proves
the point.
Start with what the Act says about when supervised re-
lease begins and ends. The Act instructs that a term of

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Opinion of the Court
supervised release starts “the day the person is released
from imprisonment.” §3624(e). The Act then tells us when
a term of supervised release must end, generally setting its
maximum length at one, three, or five years, depending on
the severity of the defendant’s underlying offense.
§3583(b). Neither provision hints at anything like the
Ninth Circuit’s automatic extension rule. To the contrary,
that rule risks flouting the Act by permitting courts to ex-
tend supervised release beyond even the maximum terms
set by Congress.
Next, consider how the Act treats absconders. As a con-
dition of supervised release, a court may order a defendant
to report to a probation officer and inform authorities if he
changes his residence. See §§3563(b)(15), (17). Should a
defendant violate those (or any other) conditions, a court
may (and sometimes must) revoke his supervised release
and send him back to prison with a new term of supervised
release to follow. §§3583(e)(3), (g). That the Act authorizes
those potent tools for addressing absconders—but makes no
mention of anything like the Ninth Circuit’s automatic ex-
tension rule—is telling too.
Relevant as well, the Act authorizes other extension and
(true) tolling rules. Take a few examples. Section
3583(e)(2) permits a court to “extend a term of supervised
release,” but only subject to important limitations. A court
must generally hold a hearing and consider various sen-
tencing factors. See §3583(e)(2); Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 32.1.
A court cannot extend supervised release beyond the maxi-
mum term set by statute. See §3583(e)(2). Nor may a court
extend a term of supervised release if that term has already
expired. See ibid.; Brief for United States 8, 38, 45. The
Ninth Circuit’s automatic extension rule disregards not just
one but each of these limits. Under its approach, no hearing
is needed, a term of supervised release may extend beyond
the statutory maximum, and a court-ordered expiration
date becomes meaningless.

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6 RICO v. UNITED STATES
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Section 3583(i) also addresses extensions. It provides
that a court’s power to revoke supervised release “extends
beyond the expiration of the term of supervised release for
any period reasonably necessary for the adjudication of
matters arising before its expiration if, before its expiration,
a warrant or summons has been issued on the basis of an
allegation of such violation.” Here, then, the Act speaks di-
rectly to what a court may do after the expiration of a de-
fendant’s judicially ordered term of supervised release. But
(again) the Act bounds a court’s authority. A court may ad-
judicate only “matters arising before” the expiration of the
defendant’s term of supervised release. It may do so only if
a warrant or summons issued during that term. And noth-
ing in this provision allows a court to exceed statutory max-
imums. The Ninth Circuit’s rule, meanwhile, blows past all
those constraints, allowing courts to revoke supervised re-
lease for violations arising after the judicially decreed su-
pervised release term expires—and sometimes even after
the statutory maximum period—all without the necessity
of a warrant or summons.
If more evidence were needed to illustrate how unlikely
the Ninth Circuit’s rule is, §3624(e) would supply it. That
provision indicates that a “term of supervised release does
not run during any period in which the person is imprisoned
in connection with a conviction” for 30 consecutive days or
more. This is a true tolling rule, one that stops the clock
running on a defendant’s term of supervised release. Yet,
like the Act’s extension rules, it is narrow in scope and noth-
ing at all like the rule the Ninth Circuit has adopted.
The quantity of all these instructions has a quality of its
own, too. Cumulatively, the Act details how long super-
vised release may run, the tools courts can use to address
defendants who fail to report or commit other violations,
when courts may extend and toll terms of supervised re-
lease, and how they can go about addressing violations even
after a term of supervised release has expired. To our eyes,

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Opinion of the Court
the absence of anything like the Ninth Circuit’s rule in all
these exacting instructions is striking and strongly sugges-
tive that the Ninth Circuit’s rule more nearly represents an
adornment to Congress’s work than a permissible interpre-
tation of it.
B
Seeking to persuade us otherwise, the government starts
this way. Under §3601, it observes, a defendant on super-
vised release “shall, during the term imposed, be supervised
by a probation officer.” Many other provisions speak simi-
larly. See, e.g., §§3603(2), (3), 3624(e). As a matter of ordi-
nary meaning, the government submits, supervision “re-
quires both observation and direction.” Brief for United
States 12. Because Ms. Rico was subject to neither of those
things from early 2018 until 2023, the government reasons,
she should receive no “credit” for serving on supervised re-
lease during that period. Ibid. And, as a result, the district
court was within its rights to hold that she violated the
terms of her supervised release when she committed her
January 2022 drug offense. Id., at 18–23.
If attractive at first blush, this line of reasoning suffers
from a few underlying flaws. For one thing, the provisions
the government cites do not outline anything like the Ninth
Circuit’s automatic extension rule. Instead, they merely de-
scribe the individual responsible for supervising the defend-
ant—the probation officer—along with some of his duties.
For another, to the extent these provisions speak about the
length of supervised release at all, they indicate that a pro-
bation officer shall supervise a defendant only “during the
term imposed” by the sentencing court. See §§3601,
3624(e). And that limitation would seem to do more to hurt
than help the government’s cause.
For another thing still, an anomaly lies at the heart of the
government’s theory. The government contends that Ms.
Rico was not supervised from early 2018 until 2023 and,

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8 RICO v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of the Court
accordingly, should not have that period counted toward
her term of supervised release. 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.
If its arguments from statutory text fall short, the gov-
ernment replies, its arguments from precedent fill the gap.
In particular, the government suggests, our decisions in
Mont and United States v. Johnson, 529 U. S. 53 (2000), re-
quire us to adopt the Ninth Circuit’s rule. But here, too, we
just don’t see it. Mont simply recognized that §3624(e)’s ex-
press terms suspend (or truly toll) a defendant’s term of su-
pervised release while he remains imprisoned for a sepa-
rate state offense before trial. 587 U. S., at 521. And if that
express tolling rule highlights anything, it is only, as we
have seen, the absence of anything like the Ninth Circuit’s
rule in the statutory text. See Part II–A, supra.
Johnson is even further afield. There, the defendant re-
mained in prison longer than he should have. 529 U. S., at
54. After realizing the mistake, the district court ordered
the defendant’s release and instructed that he should begin
serving his term of supervised release. Id., at 55. The de-
fendant appealed a portion of that order, arguing that his
term of supervised release should have started “when his
lawful term of imprisonment expired.” Id., at 55–56. Ulti-
mately, we rejected that argument, reasoning that the Act’s
terms could not sustain it. Id., at 56–58. How any of that
might require us to adopt the Ninth Circuit’s rule escapes
us. Perhaps Johnson’s only relevance to this case lies in
this parallel to our case: We proceed today much as we did
there, rejecting yet one more effort to adorn the Act with a
rule Congress could have adopted but did not enact.

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Moving past our precedents, the government next ap-
peals to the common law. For centuries, the government
observes, common-law courts have held that the time be-
tween a defendant’s escape from prison and his recapture
generally does not count toward the discharge of his sen-
tence. It is a rule, the government notes, premised on the
commonsense view that an escapee should take no “ ‘man-
ner of advantage from it.’ ” Brief for United States 25 (quot-
ing 2 W. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown 200 (6th ed. 1788)).
And it is a rule, the government says, we should assume
Congress meant to carry forward under the Sentencing Re-
form Act—and one that should ultimately lead us to adopt
the Ninth Circuit’s rule. Brief for United States 29.
The government’s premises here may be sound, but its
conclusion is not. Congress may sometimes legislate
against the backdrop of the common law. We can also as-
sume for argument’s sake that the government is right
about the common-law rule and courts generally paused the
clock on a defendant’s sentence and its attendant conditions
when he escaped from prison and remained at large. But,
as we have seen, the government seeks a very different rule
here. Its proposed rule does not stop any clock or merely
ensure a defendant does not take advantage of his abscond-
ment. It imposes a new punishment on him by automati-
cally extending his term of supervised release.
Look at it this way. When a prisoner escapes, he is in no
sense serving his prison sentence. In contrast, when a de-
fendant on supervised release fails to report, everyone
agrees he remains bound by the terms of his release. That
is why, for failing to report and any other violation he may
commit during his judicially ordered term of supervised re-
lease, a court may send a defendant to prison and authorize
more supervised release yet. §3583(e)(3). The court can do
all that, too, even after the defendant’s prescribed term of
supervised release expires, so long as a warrant or sum-
mons issues beforehand. §3583(i). The Act thus already

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10 RICO v. UNITED STATES
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provides courts with many ways to ensure a defendant does
not profit from a supervised release violation. But what the
Act does not do is automatically extend the defendant’s pe-
riod of supervised release beyond what a judge has ordered.
And that additional rule is hardly necessary to ensure that
a defendant should take “no manner of advantage” from his
abscondment.
The government urges us to consider Anderson v. Corall,
263 U. S. 193 (1923). That case, the government insists,
illustrates how background common-law principles should
inform our understanding of the Act. In Corall, a federal
court sentenced the defendant to prison, followed by a term
of parole, a form of conditional release different from (but
not wholly unlike) supervised release. Id., at 193–194.
While the defendant was on parole, he committed a new
state crime and was sentenced to state prison. Id., at 194.
After his release, federal authorities revoked the defend-
ant’s parole and returned him to federal prison. Id., at 194–
195. The defendant protested that his federal parole clock
had expired while he was in state prison, but we disagreed.
Instead, applying background common-law principles, we
held that the defendant’s state confinement stopped the
clock on his federal parole much as a prisoner’s escape stops
the clock on his prison sentence. Id., at 196–197.
We fail to see how any of this moves the needle. Corall
might teach that, thanks to background common-law prin-
ciples, a defendant’s federal parole clock stops running dur-
ing his time in state prison. But what does that prove?
When it comes to supervised release, as we have seen, Con-
gress has already codified a similar rule, providing that a
defendant’s incarceration for 30 days or more pauses his
term of supervised release. §3624(e). And none of that
means the government is entitled to an additional and very
different rule that would automatically extend a defend-
ant’s term of supervised release beyond what a court has
ordered and possibly even beyond the statutory maximum.

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Simply put, Corall did not even contemplate, let alone en-
dorse, anything like the Ninth Circuit’s rule.
In the end, the government is left to resort to a policy
plea. The Act may supply courts with many tools to address
absconding defendants. A court may even revoke a defend-
ant’s supervised release after his judicially ordered term of
supervised release has expired so long as a warrant or sum-
mons issues before the term ends. See §3583(i). But in
cases where a defendant absconds late in his supervised re-
lease term, the government protests, a probation officer
may not realize his absence in time to secure a warrant or
summons, leaving a court powerless to address violations
after the term expires. It’s a problem, the government in-
sists, we should remedy by endorsing the Ninth Circuit’s
rule.
This plea is misdirected. If the government thinks
§3583(i)’s warrant-or-summons requirement too demand-
ing, the proper place to register that complaint is with those
who drafted it. This Court is not free to rewrite the direc-
tions Congress has provided. Nor is it clear to us, for that
matter, how serious the government’s supposed problem is.
Defendants may commit many violations late in their terms
of supervised release. Some of those violations, like secre-
tive or nascent criminal activities, may be difficult to detect.
By comparison, a defendant’s failure to report to a proba-
tion officer as instructed is presumably among the easiest
violations for federal authorities to notice. So even if we
had the authority to rewrite the law’s terms to address
“late-in-term-and-difficult-to-detect-violations,” it is not
clear why we would start with failure to report violations.*
——————
*The dissent maintains that, even if Ms. Rico’s January 2022 offense
did not qualify as an independent supervised release violation, the dis-
trict court could have considered that offense under the Sentencing Re-
form Act when fashioning an appropriate sentence for the violations she
committed before June 2021. See post, at 1–4 (opinion of ALITO , J.). But
that, of course, is not what happened. Instead, the district court treated

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*
Because the Sentencing Reform Act does not authorize
the rule the Court of Appeals adopted and the government
advances, the judgment of the Ninth Circuit is reversed,
and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
——————
Ms. Rico’s January 2022 offense as an independent supervised release
violation. And the Ninth Circuit affirmed that decision based on its “toll-
ing” rule. As we have explored (and the dissent hardly contests), those
decisions are inconsistent with the Act’s terms. At bottom, then, and
despite its insistence otherwise, post, at 4, n. 2, the dissent believes those
errors are harmless because, it says, the district court could have ac-
counted 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. The Ninth Circuit decision under review never addressed
the question of harmless error. Nor does the government press a harm-
less-error argument before us. In these circumstances, it is “normal
practice” to leave any question about harmless error for resolution on
remand “in the first instance.” Neder v. United States, 527 U. S. 1, 25
(1999). No sound reason exists to deviate from that practice here.

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1 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026)
ALITO , J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 24–1056
ISABEL RICO, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
[March 25, 2026]
J USTICE ALITO , dissenting.
This case is much simpler than the Court’s opinion sug-
gests, and we have no need to consider whether petitioner’s
term of supervised release was “tolled” when she absconded
and evaded supervision.
I
I will start with what is undisputed. In December 2017,
petitioner began a 42-month term of supervised release
and, during that time, was required not to use illegal drugs
or commit any other crimes and was ordered to notify her
probation officer if her address changed. In May 2018, she
moved without telling her probation officer, and a warrant
was issued for her arrest. She remained a fugitive until
January 2023, but during the intervening months, she com-
mitted three state-law criminal offenses, including a drug
crime in January 2022. The sentencing judge, exercising
his authority under 18 U. S. C. §§3583(e)(3) and (h), re-
voked petitioner’s term of supervised release, sent her back
to prison for 16 months, and required her to serve a new 2-
year term of supervised release after her release from con-
finement.
In determining the length of petitioner’s new term of im-
prisonment, the judge turned first to the Sentencing Guide-
lines. Without the January 2022 drug offense, the sentenc-
ing range recommended by the Guidelines was 8 to 14

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2 RICO v. UNITED STATES
ALITO , J., dissenting
months, but with the drug offense the range jumped to 33
to 36 months. The judge started with the higher range, but
he made a large downward “variance” and set her sentence
at 16 months, just 2 months longer than the top of the range
that would have applied if the drug offense were disre-
garded.
II
The question before us is whether the sentencing judge’s
consideration of the drug offense was lawful, and based on
the terms of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, it clearly
was. Under 18 U. S. C. §3583(e), the judge was permitted
to take into account most of the factors set out in §3553(a),
and several of those factors permitted consideration of the
January 2022 drug crime. For example, imprisoning peti-
tioner for 16 months could deter her from committing crim-
inal offenses, including drug crimes, during and after her
new 2-year term of supervised release. See §3553(a)(2)(B).
The 16-month term could also deter others from violating
supervised release and committing serious crimes. See
ibid. And by confining petitioner for 16 months, the sen-
tence protected the public from crimes that petitioner, a se-
rial recidivist, might have committed if she were not in
prison. See §3553(a)(2)(C).1
Although the Sentencing Reform Act plainly authorized
the sentencing judge to consider the January 2022 drug of-
fense, petitioner challenges her sentence based on her in-
terpretation of the Sentencing Guidelines. That argument
should be rejected for at least two reasons. First, the Sen-
tencing Commission cannot take away important authority
that the Sentencing Reform Act unequivocally gives to
——————
1 Even petitioner concedes that the “supervisee’s conduct after the ex-
piration of the term can still be considered by the sentencing court as
part of the relevant 18 U. S. C. §3553(a) analysis when selecting the ap-
propriate revocation sentence.” Brief for Petitioner 46 (emphasis in orig-
inal).

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3 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026)
ALITO , J., dissenting
district courts. Second, the Sentencing Guidelines,
properly read, do not prevent a judge from considering all
crimes that a prisoner commits after absconding from su-
pervised release.
Petitioner’s contrary argument rests on what she under-
stands to be the combined operation of several provisions of
the Sentencing Guidelines. At the time of her sentencing,
§7B1.1 set out several grades of supervised released viola-
tions, ranging from Grade A for the worst transgressions
(including drug felonies) to Grade C for the least serious.
United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual
§7B1.1 (Nov. 2023). Section 7B1.4(a) provided recom-
mended ranges of imprisonment for each violation grade.
Petitioner contends that a supervised release violation is
one that occurs while a prisoner is on supervised release
and that she was no longer on supervised release when she
committed the drug crime in January 2022 because her
term of supervised release continued to run while she was
a fugitive and thus expired in 2021. As a result, she main-
tains, the drug offense should not have been considered in
calculating the sentence recommended by the Guidelines.
I am bemused by the notion that petitioner was on super-
vised release when she was evading all supervision. (I sup-
pose she was on “unsupervised supervised release.”) And it
seems strange to regard a crime committed after the expi-
ration of “unsupervised supervised release” as a non-event.
By that logic, if petitioner had gone on a murder spree after
the expiration of the period of unsupervised supervised re-
lease, the sentencing judge would have been required to put
that out of his mind.
As I see it, however, the whole debate about whether pe-
titioner’s term of supervised release continued to run or was
“tolled” while she was on the lam is pointless. The Guide-
lines are merely advisory, and this Court has made it clear
that a judge is allowed to impose a sentence outside the rec-
ommended Guidelines range when that range “fails

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4 RICO v. UNITED STATES
ALITO , J., dissenting
properly to reflect §3553(a) considerations.” Rita v. United
States, 551 U. S. 338, 351 (2007).
That is what the judge did here, and it makes no differ-
ence that he started with the 33-to-36-month range and
then varied downward to 16 months instead of starting
with the lower range of 8 to 14 months and varying upward
by 2 months based on the drug crime. Not only was this
permitted by the Guidelines, but the judge stated that
Rico’s sentence was imposed “regardless of the applicable
sentencing guideline range.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 35a. By
taking petitioner’s January 2022 drug crime into account in
this way, the judge acted in conformity with the Sentencing
Reform Act, the Sentencing Guidelines, and the authority
that this Court recognized in Rita.2
I would therefore affirm.
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2 Contrary to the Court’s argument, see ante, at 11, n., I do not contend
that we should affirm based on harmless error. Rather, the District
Judge made no error at all.

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