So this dude Mont was peddling drugs, and got busted in 2005. He was sentenced in federal court (federal is relevant here) for ten years, plus another five years supervised release.

So this dumb motherfucker gets busted doing dumb shit near the end of his supervised release, but they were state crimes. He knew he was fucked, and pleaded guilty.

Here’s where this shit gets kinda funny. So he pleaded guilty in state court about 6 months before his supervised release from the federal term, but the state being the state, took forever to sentence this motherfucker. Precisely 15 days after his supervised release had ended.

So his probation officer for the federal crime went all narc and shit, and told on this motherfucker to the federal circuit court. And they were all like, “Mont, you dumb motherfucker. You’re going to jail for 42 months on top of the time you’ll serve for your state convictions. How dare you violate during your supervised release!”

So then Mont’s attorney, trying to be the clever ambulance chaser that he was, decided to play the angles. So he was like, “Look feds, he didn’t get sentenced until after his federal release was over. So he served his time and you were done with him before this new crime. So you have no jurisdiction here.” This despite the fact he plead guilty and committed the crime well before his supervised release.

So it lands at the lap of SCOTUS, who were clearly unsympathetic to Mont. Because they were like, “Hey, the clock paused on Mont’s supervised release when his dumb ass was sent to pretrial detention, and this moves his date back past the state conviction date, giving the feds jurisdiction. So fuck you, off to jail you go, you little shit.”

5:4 Decision for United States, in a pretty non-partisan decision. Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Gorsuch were the dissenters, saying that pretrial detention doesn’t remove the presumption of innocence. It’s there to make sure that dumb fuck shows up for trial, not punish him. As such, it shouldn’t pause shit. But, they’re in the minority, so they are in the loser’s lounge with Mont.

Hear oral arguments and read about the case here.