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U.S. Supreme Court Oral Arguments

Esteras v. United States

U.S. Supreme Court Oral Arguments

Oyez

National, Government & Organizations

4.6640 Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2025

⏱️ 75 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A case in which the Court will decide whether a court may, in considering whether to revoke an individual’s supervised release and impose a prison sentence, consider factors from the law governing sentencing not mentioned in the supervised release law.

Transcript

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0:00.0

We will hear argument first this morning in case 237483 Estaris v. United States.

0:06.9

Mr. Grostick.

0:08.3

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court, in Section 3583E, Congress listed factors

0:14.6

that courts must consider when terminating, modifying, or revoking supervised release,

0:19.9

and omitted the factors that it intended to preclude.

0:22.8

Most important here is Section 3553A2A's retribution factors.

0:27.9

3553A expressly states that A2's four subsections are the purposes of sentencing,

0:34.5

which courts must satisfy when imposing prison a fine or probation.

0:39.5

Courts have wide discretion about what to consider and how to fulfill those purposes,

0:43.6

but they do not have discretion about what purposes to satisfy.

0:47.7

In 3583E, Congress was surgical and removed one of those purposes, retributive punishment under A2A.

0:55.9

That was different from every other sentencing option, including the otherwise identical language in the probation statute.

1:02.9

Congress thereby precluded courts from considering A2A's retributive purposes in the supervised release context,

1:09.8

as this court recognized in Tapia regarding the identical list in subsection C.

1:15.7

And the Senate report confirms what we see in the text.

1:19.5

Under subsection C, courts, quote, may not, or supervised release, quote, may not be imposed for purposes of punishment.

1:27.6

And the identical list in subsection E has the same meaning.

1:31.8

That also fits with the history of the statute.

1:35.0

When Congress abolished parole, it created supervised release to fulfill the

1:38.9

rehabilitative purposes following a prison sentence that satisfies A2A.

1:45.7

Congress gave courts tools to adjust supervision, such as extending or modifying, but only for

1:51.2

the limited purposes listed in 3583E. Congress did not add A2A to that list in later amendments, when it added the revocation tool and when it added

...

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