Supervised Release — commencement

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U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit

Criminal

Supervised Release — commencement

Where a prisoner is held in custody after expiration of his prison term, pending a decision whether to civilly commit him as a sex offender, his supervised release does not begin until he actually leaves custody.

“But even granting that the word ‘imprisonment’ often connotes a connection to a conviction, Maranda’s argument fails in the specific instance of § 3624(e)’s commencement provision. This is because the very next sentence of § 3624(e)—the tolling provision—uses the phrase ‘imprisonment in connection with a conviction.’ Why would Congress specify this link to a conviction if ‘imprisonment’ necessarily implied it? See Neuhauser, 745 F.3d at 128–29 (making this same point). Maranda’s understanding therefore runs headlong into the ‘cardinal principle of statutory construction’ that ‘a statute ought, upon the whole, to be so construed that, if it can be prevented, no clause, sentence, or word shall be superfluous, void, or insignificant.’ TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U.S. 19, 31 (2001) (quoting Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 174 (2001)).”

Affirmed.

13-3917 U.S. v. Maranda

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Darrow, J., Flaum, J.