Justice Samuel Alito broke from the rest of the Supreme Court of the United States on Wednesday, issuing the lone dissent in a major criminal-law ruling that limits how courts can handle defendants who flee supervision.
In an 8-1 decision, the Court ruled that federal law does not allow a term of supervised release to be automatically extended simply because a defendant absconds. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the majority opinion, joined by both conservative and liberal justices, creating a rare moment of consensus across ideological lines, Newsweek reported.
At the center of the case was whether courts can “toll,” or pause, a supervised-release term when a defendant disappears and avoids authorities. The justices rejected that interpretation, overturning a lower court ruling from the Ninth Circuit that had allowed prosecutors to treat crimes committed years later as violations of an extended supervision period.
“The Ninth Circuit’s rule really does is extend the period of supervised release beyond what a judge has ordered,” Gorsuch wrote, emphasizing that the law does not grant courts the authority to lengthen supervision in that way.
The ruling resolves a long-standing split among federal appeals courts, some of which had allowed this kind of fugitive tolling while others had rejected it. By siding with the narrower interpretation, the Court placed clear limits on how far judges can go in holding absconding defendants accountable after their original supervision period expires.
The case stems from Isabel Rico, who was sentenced in 2010 to seven years in prison on federal drug trafficking charges. After violating her supervised release in 2017, she was ordered to serve an additional 42-month term.
Rico later disappeared, prompting a warrant for her arrest in 2018. She was not located again until 2023, during which time she was arrested and convicted on new state charges, including drug-related offenses in 2022.
Federal courts treated those later crimes as violations of her supervised release. But Rico challenged that decision, arguing that her supervision had already expired by the time of the 2022 offense and could not be extended simply because she had absconded.
The Supreme Court agreed with her position, concluding that the Sentencing Reform Act does not authorize courts to pause or extend supervision under those circumstances.
Alito sharply disagreed.
In his dissent, he argued that the case was “much simpler” than the majority suggested and warned that the Court’s ruling strips judges of a practical tool to address defendants who evade supervision.
“The Sentencing Reform Act plainly authorized the sentencing judge to consider the January 2022 drug offense,” Alito wrote, adding that the majority’s interpretation undermines accountability.
He also criticized what he described as a legal fiction, questioning how someone could be considered on supervised release while actively avoiding all supervision.
“I am bemused by the notion that petitioner was on supervised release when she was evading all supervision,” he wrote. “It seems strange to regard a crime committed after the expiration of ‘unsupervised supervised release’ as a non-event.”
Alito further argued that sentencing guidelines are advisory and that judges should retain broad discretion to consider all relevant conduct, including crimes committed after a defendant absconds.
The decision carries nationwide implications for federal sentencing and supervision. Going forward, lower courts will be limited in their ability to treat post-expiration conduct as violations unless Congress explicitly provides otherwise.
While the ruling narrows enforcement options for prosecutors, it reinforces the principle that courts must operate within the authority clearly granted by statute—even in cases involving defendants who flee.
The outcome also highlights an unusual divide within the Court’s conservative bloc, with Alito standing alone as the only justice to side with the government’s broader enforcement approach.