Rico v. United States: Oral Argument

Case Summary:Rico v. United States involves Isabel Rico, who was sentenced in 2010 to 84 months in prison and four years of supervised release for a federal drug offense, then began serving her supervised release in 2017. In 2018, she absconded, stopping all contact with her probation officer, while 37 months of supervised release remained. After she was arrested in January 2023 and charged with new violations, the district court, applying the judge‑made “fugitive tolling” doctrine, treated her supervised release term as having been paused during the years she was a fugitive and thus still running, revoked her release, and resentenced her to 16 months in prison followed by a new two‑year term of supervised release, a result the Ninth Circuit affirmed. The issue before the Supreme Court was whether federal courts may apply a judge‑made “fugitive tolling” doctrine to pause (toll) a defendant’s term of supervised release while the defendant is a fugitive, even though 18 U.S.C. § 3624(e) specifies when supervised release is tolled and does not mention fugitive status.