Mont v. United States

Mont originally challenged the jurisdiction of the District Court, arguing that his term of supervised release ended March 6, 2017. The District Court retained jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C. §3583(i). A three-judge panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the decision but on different grounds, holding that under Sixth Circuit precedent Mont's term of supervised release was tolled during the time that he was in pretrial detention for another offense.[3][5]

At the time the Sixth Circuit decided the case, there was a circuit split about this exact issue.[2] The United States Courts of Appeal for the Fourth,[6] Fifth,[7] Sixth,[8] and Eleventh[9] Circuits all agreed, prior to the Supreme Court granting certiorari, that pretrial detention counts as "imprison[ment] in connection with a conviction" under 18 U.S.C. §3583(i) while the Ninth[10] and D.C.[11] Circuits disagreed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve the question.[12]

Mont, the defendant in this case, argued that the term of supervised release should not be paused during pretrial detention because pretrial detention is not "imprison[ment] in connection with a conviction . . . ."[13] Specifically, Mont argued that pretrial detentions are only in connection with a conviction when the defendant is found to be guilty, thus imposing a retroactive definition not contemplated in the statute nor its history.[13] In response, the United States argued that any other reading would not comport with the plain text of the statute and tolling terms of supervised release during pretrial detention better serves the "supervised-release scheme" because supervised release is meant to help people reintegrate into society--something not possible when that person is in detention.[14]

In a majority opinion by Justice Thomas, the Court ruled in favor of the United States, holding that terms of supervised release are tolled while a person is in pretrial detention in accordance with 18 U.S.C. §3624(e). The Court employed a firm textualist approach to the statute, stating that the dictionary definition of "imprisonment" clearly includes pretrial detention. Further, the Court reasoned that because pretrial detention is often counted as time served once someone is convicted, it clearly is in "connection with a conviction." The Court went on to reason the statute juxtaposes supervised release and probation with imprisonment, clearly distinguishing the two different sentences and "it would be an exceedingly odd construction of the statute to give a defendant the windfall of satisfying a new sentence of imprisonment and an old sentence of supervised release with the same period of pretrial detention."[2] The Court agreed with the United States that the purpose of supervised release would be frustrated by a reading that allowed a term to continue concurrently with pretrial detention, therefore holding that tolling is appropriate and affirming the decision of the Sixth Circuit.[2]

Justice Sotomayor authored the dissent, joined by three other justices, and relied heavily on the statute's present-tense construction. She emphasized that a plain reading of the statute did not allow pretrial detention to be read as "imprison[ment] in connection with a conviction" because at the time of pretrial detention no conviction exists.[2] It's only upon retroactive application, she argued, that pretrial detention can be said to be in connection with a conviction, yet the way the statute is written precludes that conclusion.[2]