Bader Ginsburg Just Sided with Conservative Justices

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the four liberal justices on the Supreme Court, sided with her conservative colleagues on Monday over a prisoner’s supervisory release. She joined Justices Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh in the majority, deciding that a criminal defendant, in this case Jason Mont, can be sentenced for violating his supervised release, even if the release expires while he is incarcerated ahead of facing new charges. Her vote was swapped with conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who joined liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan in their dissent.

Mont had been indicted by a grand jury for multiple drug and firearm offenses. He was released from federal prison on March 6, 2012, but broke the law again on supervised release, found guilty of two counts of cocaine trafficking. He then tested positive on several drug tests. His supervised release date was set for June 28, 2017.

The District Court issued a warrant on March 30, 2017, and ultimately set a supervised-release hearing for June 28, 2017. 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.

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