The case centers on Isabel Rico, who absconded from her 42-month supervised release term in May 2018 after serving only five months. Authorities located Rico in January 2023, and the district court revoked her release and sentenced her to 16 months in prison followed by a new two-year supervised release term.
Rico argued the district court lacked authority to revoke her release because her original term would have expired while she was a fugitive. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision, applying the fugitive-tolling doctrine to pause the clock on her sentence during her time at large.
Adam G. Unikowsky, representing Rico, told the justices that the Sentencing Reform Act intended revocation, not fugitive tolling, to address abscondment. He argued that the government’s position creates a logical contradiction: Rico cannot be violating conditions of supervised release if she is not simultaneously serving that sentence.
"The government claims that Ms. Rico wasn't serving her sentence at all during the period of the abscondment. But that argument cannot be squared with the government's simultaneous contention that Ms. Rico violated the conditions of supervised release during that period..." Unikowsky said.
Justice Clarence Thomas pressed Unikowsky on the intuitive force of the government’s argument. "How can it be considered supervised release when this person -- the absconder is not being supervised?" Thomas asked.
Unikowsky acknowledged the intuition but argued that the government’s theory requires believing Rico violated conditions while not serving the sentence. He noted that both parties agree absconders should be deprived of credit for time spent at large, but they disagree on the mechanism. Unikowsky argued the clock should keep running, and upon apprehension, the judge revokes release and the clock is rewound back to the beginning.
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., suggested the dispute might be driven more by the Sentencing Guidelines than the statute itself. He asked whether the 37-month mark matters only because the guidelines assign grades to offenses based on when they occurred. Unikowsky agreed that on the facts of this case, the dispute is narrow, involving whether post-expiration conduct increases the guidelines range.
Joshua K. Handell, arguing for the United States, told the court that a supervisee is not discharging their term while absconding. He argued that supervised release requires active monitoring and assistance, neither of which is possible when a defendant’s whereabouts are unknown.
"A fugitive who deliberately and successfully evades supervision, depriving the court of any information as to her conduct, condition, and compliance, is not being supervised in any sense that lawyers, legislators, or laymen would understand that word," Handell said.
Justice Neil Gorsuch questioned whether the government’s concern was merely administrative. He noted that if the government has trouble getting warrants, it could ask Congress to amend the statute, as it did once before with Section 3583(i). Gorsuch warned that creating a fugitive tolling doctrine "pretty whole cloth" would require the Court to resolve circuit splits on what constitutes abscondment.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson challenged Handell’s definition of supervision, asking if a defendant in a coma is being supervised. She also noted that Congress enacted Section 3583(i) specifically to allow revocation if a warrant issues during the term, suggesting that Congress intended to limit jurisdiction to those circumstances.
Handell argued that Section 3583(i) was enacted in 1994, a decade after the Sentencing Reform Act, to address late-breaking violations. He contended that the absence of a tolling provision 1984 Act does not foreclose the common-law doctrine, which he argued was anticipated by Congress.
Justice Elena Kagan asked Handell where he finds support for his position, noting the statute offers granular instructions for revocation but no explicit fugitive-tolling provision for supervised release. Handell pointed to Sections 3601 and 3603, which impose obligations on supervisees to be supervised and on probation officers to supervise.
The Court will issue a decision months.