Episode Details

Rico v. United States | Case No. 24-1056 | Argument: 11/3/25 | Decided: 3/25/26

Link to Docket: Here.

Question Presented: Whether the Sentencing Reform Act authorizes courts to automatically extend a defendant's supervised release term when the defendant absconds.

Overview: Federal courts split on whether a defendant's disappearance during supervised release automatically pushes back the expiration date — a question affecting thousands of federal defendants nationwide.

Posture: Ninth Circuit affirmed district court's use of post-expiration drug offense as supervised release violation.

Holding: The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 does not authorize courts to automatically extend a defendant's term of supervised release simply because the defendant runs away. The law sets firm end dates for supervision. Congress must amend the law before courts can extend deadlines if a defendant runs away.

Voting Breakdown: 8-1. Justice Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson. Justice Alito filed a dissenting opinion.

Result: Reversed and remanded.

Link to Opinion: Here.

Majority Reasoning: (1) The Sentencing Reform Act sets firm start and end dates for supervised release and supplies no automatic extension rule if a defendant runs away (i.e. absconds); (2) Congress already equipped courts with specific tools to address absconders — revocation, re-imprisonment, and post-expiration revocation via warrant — making the omission of automatic extension intentional; (3) The Act's only true tolling rule pauses supervised release during incarceration of 30 or more consecutive days, and courts cannot invent a second one.

Separate Opinions:

Justice Alito (dissenting): The majority never needed to reach the tolling question. The district court could lawfully consider Rico's January 2022 drug offense as a Section 3553(a) sentencing factor — rendering any Guidelines-range error harmless. No error occurred.

Implications:

• Federal prosecutors and probation officers must now secure a warrant or summons before a supervised release term expires to preserve revocation authority over post-expiration violations.
• Defendants sentenced under the now-rejected Ninth and Fourth Circuit automatic-extension rule may challenge those sentences.
• Congress faces pressure to revisit the warrant-or-summons requirement in late-term abscondment cases.
• Courts nationwide now apply a single uniform rule: abscondment alone does not extend a supervised release term.

Oral Advocates:

• For Petitioner: Adam G. Unikowsky, Washington, D.C.
• For Respondent: Joshua K. Handell, Assistant to the Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

The Fine Print:

• 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e): "The term of supervised release commences on the day the person is released from imprisonment... A term of supervised release does not run during any period in which the person is imprisoned in connection with a conviction for a Federal, State, or local crime unless the imprisonment is for a period of less than 30 consecutive days."
• 18 U.S.C. § 3583(i): "The power of the court to revoke a term of supervised release for violation of a condition of supervised release, and to order the defendant to serve a term of imprisonment... extends beyond th