SCOTUS struggles with supervised release revocation reasons in Esteras oral argument

The Supreme Court heard oral argument yesterday in Esteras v. US, No. 23-7483, which is one of a number of federal statutory interpretation criminal cases on the SCOTUS docket this Term.  And this one is a sentencing case, with this question presented:

The supervised-release statute, 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e), lists factors from 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) for a court to consider when sentencing a person for violating a supervised·release condition. In that list, Congress omitted the factors set forth in section 3553(a)(2)(A) — the need for the sentence to reflect the seriousness of the offense, promote respect for the law, and provide just punishment for the offense.

The question presented is: Even though Congress excluded section 3553(a)(2)(A) from section 3583(e)’s list of factors to consider when revoking supervised release, may a district court rely on the section 3553(a)(2)(A) factors when revoking supervised release?

Sentencing fans may be both intrigued and frustrated by the Esteras oral argument (audio and transcript available here), which ran a full 75 minutes and had me reacting with “hmmm” and “huh?” at various points.  Helpfully, Law360 has this effective review of the argument, and here are excerpts:  

Lower court judges have strayed from what Congress says are the only factors that may be considered when sentencing offenders for violating their supervised release, the Supreme Court heard Tuesday, as the justices address a circuit split regarding the purposes of such sentences….

The petitioners — Edgardo Esteras, Timothy Jaimez and Toriano Leaks — were each sent back to prison for breaking supervised release rules, based in part on district court rulings that cited punishment, among other factors, as justifying prison terms following the revocation of supervised release. Adding to a deep circuit split, the Sixth Circuit affirmed, joining four other appeals courts in finding that judges can take into account all the 3553a factors in sentences for violating supervised release….

An attorney for the petitioners, Christian Grostic of the office of the Federal Public Defender for the Northern District of Ohio, told the justices that Congress clearly precluded consideration of Section 3553a’s so-called retribution factors when judges sentence offenders for supervised release violations, given that such sentences aren’t meant to be punitive….

The Supreme Court seemed to be divided on the feasibility of the petitioners’ preferred outcome. Multiple justices brought up the question of how judges would exclude Section 3553a’s retributive factors from a supervised release sentencing, given that those considerations can overlap with the factors specifically listed for consideration by congress….

Masha Hansford of the Solicitor General’s Office told the high court that the statute governing what factors must be considered by a judge conducting a supervised release sentencing doesn’t prohibit consideration of other factors, as Esteras and the others contend….

The justices’ ruling could affect thousands of cases each year, the petitioners say, pointing to research by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which found 108,000 federal supervision violations from 2013 to 2017, with 86% of those resulting in a new prison term.