MONT v. UNITED STATES

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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No. 17–8995

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JASON J. MONT, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES

on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the sixth circuit

 Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.

 This case requires the Court to decide whether a convicted criminal’s period of supervised release is tolled—in effect, paused—during his pretrial detention for a new criminal offense. Specifically, the question is whether that pretrial detention qualifies as “imprison[ment] in connection with a conviction for a Federal, State, or local crime.” 18 U. S. C. §3624(e). Given the text and statutory context of §3624(e),we conclude that if the court’s later imposed sentence credits the period of pretrial detention as time served for the new offense, then the pretrial detention also tolls the supervised-release period.

I

A

 In 2004, petitioner Jason Mont began distributing cocaine and crack cocaine in northern Ohio. After substantial drug sales to a confidential informant and a search of his home that uncovered handguns and $2,700 in cash, a federal grand jury indicted Mont for multiple drug and firearm offenses. He later pleaded guilty to conspiring to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, and to possessing a firearm and ammunition after having been convicted of a  felony. See 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(1) (2000 ed.); 21 U. S. C. §§841(a)(1), 846 (2000 ed.).

 The District Court sentenced Mont to 120 months’ imprisonment, later reduced to 84 months, to be followed by 5 years of supervised release. Mont was released from federal prison on March 6, 2012, and his supervised release was “slated to end on March 6, 2017.” 723 Fed. Appx. 325, 326 (CA6 2018); see 18 U. S. C. §3624(e) (a “term of supervised release commences on the day the person is released from imprisonment”). Among other standard conditions, Mont’s supervised release required that he “not commit another federal, state, or local crime,” “not illegally possess a controlled substance,” and “refrain from any unlawful use of a controlled substance.” Judgment in No. 4:05–cr–00229 (ND Ohio), Doc. 37, p. 111.

 Mont did not succeed on supervised release. In March 2015, an Ohio grand jury charged him with two counts of marijuana trafficking in a sealed indictment. Mont was arrested and released on bond while awaiting trial for those charges. Things only got worse from there. In October 2015, Mont tested positive for cocaine and oxycodone during a routine drug test conducted as part of his supervised release. But Mont’s probation officer did not immediately report these violations to the District Court; instead, the officer referred him for additional substance-abuse counseling. Mont proceeded to test positive in five more random drug tests over the next few months. He also used an “ ‘unknown’ liquid to try to pass two subsequent drug tests.” 723 Fed. Appx., at 326. In Jan- uary 2016, Mont’s probation officer finally reported the supervised-release violations, including Mont’s use of drugs and attempts to adulterate his urine samples. The violation report also informed the District Court about the pending state charges and the anticipated trial date of March 2016 in state court. The District Court declined to issue an arrest warrant at that time, but it asked to “ ‘be notified of  the resolution of the state charges.’ ” Ibid.; see 18 U. S. C. §3606 (explaining that the District Court “may issue a warrant for the arrest” of the releasee for “violation of a condition of release”).

 On June 1, 2016, approximately four years and three months into his 5-year term of supervised release, Mont was arrested again on new state charges of trafficking in cocaine, and his bond was revoked on the earlier marijuana-trafficking charges. He was incarcerated in the Ma- honing County Jail and has remained in state custody since that date. Mont’s probation officer filed a report with the District Court stating that he had violated the terms of his release based on these new state offenses. The officer later advised the court that because Mont’s incarceration rendered him unavailable for supervision, the Probation Office was “toll[ing]” his federal supervision. App. 21. The officer promised to keep the court apprised of the pending state charges and stated that, if Mont were convicted, the officer would ask the court to take action at that time.

 In October 2016, Mont entered into plea agreements with state prosecutors in exchange for a predetermined  6-year sentence. The state trial court accepted Mont’s guilty pleas on October 6, 2016, and set the cases for sentencing in December 2016.

 Three weeks later, Mont filed a written admission in the District Court “acknowledg[ing]” that he had violated his conditions of supervised release “by virtue of his conviction following guilty pleas to certain felony offenses” in state court. Record in No. 4:05–cr–00229 (ND Ohio), Doc. 92, p. 419. Even though he had yet to be sentenced for the state offenses, Mont sought a hearing on the supervised-release violations at the court’s “earliest convenience.” Ibid. The court initially scheduled a hearing for November 9, 2016, but then, over Mont’s objection, rescheduled the hearing several times to allow for “the conclusion of the State  sentencing.” App. 8; 723 Fed. Appx., at 327.

 On March 21, 2017, Mont was sentenced in state  court to six years’ imprisonment. The judge “credited the roughly ten months that Mont had already been incarcerated pending a disposition as time served.” Id., at 327. The District Court issued a warrant on March 30, 2017, and ultimately set a supervised-release hearing for June 28, 2017.

B

 Two days before that hearing, Mont challenged the jurisdiction of the District Court based on the fact that his supervised release had initially been set to expire on March 6, 2017. The court concluded that it had authority to supervise Mont, revoked his supervised release, and ordered him to serve an additional 42 months’ imprisonment to run consecutive to his state sentence. The court held that it retained jurisdiction to revoke the release under 18 U. S. C. §3583(i), which preserves, for a “reasonably necessary” period of time, the court’s power to adjudicate violations and revoke a term of supervised release after the term has expired “if, before its expiration, a warrant or summons has been issued on the basis of an allegation of such a violation.” The court further held that it retained authority to revoke Mont’s term of supervised release because it gave “notice by way of a summons” on November 1, 2016, when it originally scheduled the hearing. App. 22. The court also concluded that the delay between the guilty pleas in October 2016 and the hearing date in June 2017 was “reasonably necessary.” Id., at 24.

 The Sixth Circuit affirmed on alternative grounds. The court could find no evidence in the record that a summons had issued within the meaning of §3583(i). 723 Fed. Appx., at 329, n. 5. But because Circuit precedent pro- vided an alternative basis for affirmance, the court did not further consider the Government’s argument that the District Court retained jurisdiction under §3583(i). Instead, the court held that Mont’s supervised-release period was tolled while he was held in pretrial detention in state custody under §3624(e), which provides:

“(e) Supervision After Release.— . . . The term of supervised release commences on the day the person is released from imprisonment and runs concurrently with any Federal, State, or local term of probation or supervised release or parole for another offense to which the person is subject or becomes subject during the term of supervised release. A term of supervised release does not run during any period in which the person is imprisoned in connection with a conviction for a Federal, State, or local crime unless the imprisonment is for a period of less than 30 consecutive days.” (Emphasis added.)

 Relying on Circuit precedent, the Sixth Circuit explained that when a defendant is convicted of the offense for which he was held in pretrial detention for longer than 30 days and “ ‘his pretrial detention is credited as time served toward his sentence, then the pretrial detention is “in connection with” a conviction and tolls the period of supervised release under §3624.’ ” Id., at 328 (quoting United States v. Goins, 516 F. 3d 416, 417 (2008)). Because Mont’s term of supervised release had been tolled between June 2016 and March 2017, there was ample time left on his supervised-release term when the warrant issued on March 30, 2017.

 The Courts of Appeals disagree on whether §3624(e) tolls supervised release for periods of pretrial detention lasting longer than 30 days when that incarceration is later credited as time served on a conviction. Compare United States v. Ide, 624 F. 3d 666, 667 (CA4 2010)  (supervised-release period tolls); United States v. Molina-Gazca, 571 F. 3d 470, 474 (CA5 2009) (same); United States v. Johnson, 581 F. 3d 1310, 1312–1313 (CA11 2009) (same); Goins, supra, at 417 (same), with United States v. Marsh, 829 F. 3d 705, 709 (CADC 2016) (supervised-release period does not toll); United States v. Morales-Alejo, 193 F. 3d 1102, 1106 (CA9 1999) (same). We granted certiorari to resolve this split of authority. 586 U. S. ___ (2018).

II

 We hold that pretrial detention later credited as time served for a new conviction is “imprison[ment] in connection with a conviction” and thus tolls the supervised-release term under §3624(e). This is so even if the court must make the tolling calculation after learning whether the time will be credited. In our view, this reading is compelled by the text and statutory context of §3624(e).

A

 Section 3624(e) provides for tolling when a person “is imprisoned in connection with a conviction.” This phrase, sensibly read, includes pretrial detention credited toward another sentence for a new conviction.

 First, the definition of “is imprisoned” may well include pretrial detention. Both now and at the time Congress created supervised release, see §212(a)(2), 98 Stat. 1999–2000, the term “imprison” has meant “[t]o put in a prison,” “to incarcerate,” “[t]o confine a person, or restrain his liberty, in any way.” Black’s Law Dictionary 681 (5th ed. 1979); 5 Oxford English Dictionary 113 (1933); accord, Black’s Law Dictionary 875 (10th ed. 2014). These definitions encompass pretrial detention, and, despite the dissent’s reliance on a narrower definition, post, at 5–7 (opinion of Sotomayor, J.), even Mont has not pressed any serious argument to the contrary. As the Sixth Circuit previously recognized, if imprisonment referred only to “confinement that is the result of a penalty or sentence, then the phrase ‘in connection with a conviction’ [would] becom[e] entirely superfluous.” Goins, supra, at 421.

 Second, the phrase “in connection with a conviction” encompasses a period of pretrial detention for which a defendant receives credit against the sentence ultimately imposed. The Court has often recognized that “in connection with” can bear a “broad interpretation.” Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. v. Dabit, 547 U. S. 71, 85 (2006) (interpreting “in connection with the purchase or sale” broadly in the context of §10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U. S. C. §78j(b)); see, e.g., United States v. American Union Transport, Inc., 327 U. S. 437, 443 (1946) (describing the phrase “in connection with” in the Shipping Act, 1916, 39 Stat. 728, as “broad and general”). The Court has also recognized that “ ‘ in connection with’ is essentially indeterminate because connections, like relations, stop nowhere.” Maracich v. Spears, 570 U. S. 48, 59 (2013) (quotation altered). Here, however, we need not consider the outer bounds of the term “in connection with,” as pretrial incarceration is directly tied to the conviction when it is credited toward the new sentence. The judgment of the state court stated as much, crediting the pretrial detention that Mont served while awaiting trial and sentencing for his crimes against his ultimate sentence for those same crimes.

 This reading of “imprison[ment] in connection with a conviction” is buttressed by the fact that Congress, like most States, instructs courts calculating a term of imprisonment to credit pretrial detention as time served on a subsequent conviction. See 18 U. S. C. §3585(b)(1); Tr. of Oral Arg. 54 (statement of the Assistant Solicitor General representing that the same rule applies in 45 States and the District of Columbia). Thus, it makes sense that the phrase “imprison[ment] in connection with a conviction” would include pretrial detention later credited as time served, especially since both provisions were passed as part of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. See §212(a)(2), 98 Stat. 2008–2009. If Congress intended a narrower interpretation, it could have easily used narrower language, such as “after a conviction” or “following a conviction.” See e.g., Bail Reform Act of 1984, §209(d)(4), 98 Stat. 1987 (adding Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 46(h), allowing courts to direct forfeiture of property “after conviction of the offense charged” (emphasis added)). We cannot override Congress’ choice to employ the more capacious phrase “in connection with.”

 Third, the text undeniably requires courts to retrospectively calculate whether a period of pretrial detention should toll a period of supervised release. Whereas §3624(e) instructs courts precisely when the supervised-release clock begins—“on the day the person is released”—the statute does not require courts to make a tolling determination as soon as a defendant is arrested on new charges or to continually reassess the tolling calculation throughout the period of his pretrial detention. Congress contemplated the opposite by including a minimum-incarceration threshold: tolling occurs “unless the imprisonment is for a period of less than 30 consecutive days.” §3624(e). This calculation must be made after either release from custody or entry of judgment; there is no way for a court to know on day 5 of a defendant’s pretrial detention whether the period of custody will extend beyond 30 days. Thus, at least some uncertainty as to whether supervised release is tolled is built into §3624(e) by legislative design. This fact confirms that courts should make the tolling calculation upon the defendant’s release from custody or upon entry of judgment.

B

 The statutory context also supports our reading. Supervised release is “a form of postconfinement monitoring” that permits a defendant a kind of conditional liberty by allowing him to serve part of his sentence outside of  prison. Johnson v. United States, 529 U. S. 694, 697 (2000). Recognizing that Congress provided for supervised release to facilitate a “transition to community life,” we have declined to offset a term of supervised release by the amount of excess time a defendant spent in prison after two of his convictions were declared invalid. United States v. Johnson, 529 U. S. 53, 59–60 (2000). As we explained: “The objectives of supervised release would be unfulfilled if excess prison time were to offset and reduce terms of supervised release” because “[s]upervised release has no statutory function until confinement ends.” Id., at 59. This understanding of supervised release informs our reading of the tolling provision.

 Consider §3624(e) itself. The sentence preceding the one at issue here specifies that supervised release “runs concurrently” with “probation or supervised release or parole for another offense.” §3624(e) (emphasis added). But the next sentence (the one at issue here) excludes periods of “imprison[ment]” served “in connection with a conviction.” The juxtaposition of these two sentences reinforces the fact that prison time is “not interchange- able” with supervised release. Id., at 59. Permitting a period of probation or parole to count toward supervised release but excluding a period of incarceration furthers the statutory design of “successful[ly] transition[ing]” a defendant from “prison to liberty.” Johnson, supra, at 708–709. Allowing pretrial detention credited toward another sentence to toll the period of supervised release is consistent with that design. Cf. A. Scalia & B. Garner,  Reading Law 167 (2012) (explaining that “the whole-text canon” requires consideration of “the entire text, in view of its structure” and “logical relation of its many parts”).

 Second, 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. Supervised release is a form of punishment that Congress prescribes along with a term of imprisonment as part of the same sentence. See generally §3583. And Congress denies defendants credit for time served if the detention time has already “been credited against another sentence.” §3585(b). Yet Mont’s reading of §3624(e) would deprive the Government of its lawfully imposed sentence of supervised release while the defendant is serving a separate sentence of incarceration—one often imposed by a different sovereign. Under our view, in contrast, time in pretrial detention constitutes supervised release only if the charges against the defendant are dismissed or the defendant is acquitted. This ensures that the defendant is not faulted for conduct he might not have committed, while otherwise giving full effect to the lawful judgment previously imposed on the defendant.¹

C

 In response to these points, Mont follows the D. C. Circuit in arguing that the present tense of the statute (“ ‘is imprisoned’ ”) forbids any backward looking tolling analysis. See Marsh, 829 F. 3d, at 709. Mont contends that, when a defendant is held in pretrial detention, a court cannot say at that moment that he “is imprisoned in connection with a conviction.” He relies on the Dictionary Act, which provides that “[i]n determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise[,] words used in the present tense include the future as well as the present.” 1 U. S. C. §1.

 Mont’s argument confuses the rule (“any period in which the person is imprisoned in connection with a conviction”) with a court’s analysis of whether that rule was satisfied. Of course, the determination whether supervised release has been tolled cannot be made at the exact moment when the defendant is held in pretrial detention. Rather, the court must await the outcome of those separate proceedings before it will know whether “imprison[ment]” is tied to a conviction. But the statute does not require the court to make a contemporaneous assessment. Quite the opposite: As discussed, the statute undeniably contemplates that there will be uncertainty about the status of supervised release when a defendant has been held for a short period of time and it is unclear whether the imprisonment will exceed 30 days. There is no reason the statute would preclude postponing calculation just because the custody period extends beyond 30 days. Once the court makes the calculation, it will determine whether the relevant period ultimately qualified as a period “in which the person is imprisoned in connection with a conviction” for 30 or more days. In short, the present-tense phrasing of the statute does not address whether a judge must be able to make a supervised-release determination at any given time.

 Moreover, any uncertainty about whether supervised release is tolled matters little from either the court’s or the defendant’s perspective. As for the court, the defendant need not be supervised when he is held in custody, so it does not strike us as “odd” to make a delayed determination concerning tolling. Marsh, supra, at 710. The court need not monitor the defendant’s progress in transitioning back into the community because the defendant is not in the community. And if the court is concerned about losing authority over the defendant because of an impending conclusion to supervised release, it can simply issue a summons or warrant under §3583(i) for alleged violations.

 As for the defendant, there is nothing unfair about not knowing during pretrial detention whether he is also subject to court supervision. The answer to that question cannot meaningfully influence his behavior. A defendant in custody will be unable to comply with many ordinary conditions of supervised release intended to reacclimate him to society—for example, making restitution payments, attending substance-abuse counseling, meeting curfews, or participating in job training. The rules he can “comply” with are generally mandated by virtue of being in prison—for example, no new offenses or use of drugs. See §§3563(a)–(b) (listing mandatory and discretionary conditions). In this case, Mont’s supervised-release conditions required that he “work regularly at a lawful occupation” and “support his . . . dependants and meet other family responsibilities.” Judgment in No. 4:05–cr–00229 (ND Ohio), Doc. 37, at 111. Mont could not fulfill these conditions while sitting in an Ohio jail, and his probation officer correctly deemed him “unavailable for supervision.”²  App. 21.

III

 Applying §3624(e) to Mont, the pretrial-detention period tolled his supervised release beginning in June 2016. Mont therefore had about nine months remaining on his term of supervised release when the District Court revoked his supervised release and sentenced him to an additional 42 months’ imprisonment. And because §3624(e) independently tolled the supervised-release period, it is immaterial whether the District Court could have issued a summons or warrant under §3583(i) to preserve its authority.

*  *  *

 In light of the statutory text and context of §3624(e), pretrial detention qualifies as “imprison[ment] in connection with a conviction” if a later imposed sentence credits that detention as time served for the new offense. Such pretrial detention tolls the supervised-release period, even though the District Court may need to make the tolling determination after the conviction. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Sixth Circuit.

It is so ordered.