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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 92-1662
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UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. RALPH STUART
GRANDERSON, Jr.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the eleventh circuit
[March 22, 1994]

  Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court.
  This case presents a question of statutory interpreta-
tion regarding revocation of a federal sentence of
probation.  The law at issue provides that if a person
serving a sentence of probation possesses illegal drugs,
-the court shall revoke the sentence of probation and
sentence the defendant to not less than one-third of the
original sentence.-  18 U. S. C. 3565(a).  Congress did
not further define the critical term -original sentence,-
nor are those words, unmodified, used elsewhere in the
Federal Criminal Code chapter on sentencing.  Embed-
ded in that context, the words -original sentence- in
3565(a) are susceptible to at least three interpretations.
  Read in isolation, the provision could be taken to
mean the reimposition of a sentence of probation, for a
period not less than one-third of the original sentence of
probation.  This construction, however, is implausible,
and has been urged by neither party, for it would
generally demand no increased sanction, plainly not
what Congress intended.
  The Government, petitioner here, reads the provision
to draw the time period from the initially imposed
sentence of probation, but to require incarceration, not
renewed probation, for not less than one-third of that

period.  On the Government's reading, accepted by the
District Court, respondent Granderson would face a
20-month mandatory minimum sentence of imprison-
ment.
  Granderson maintains that -original sentence- refers
to the sentence of incarceration he could have received
initially, in lieu of the sentence of probation, under the
United States Sentencing Guidelines.  Granderson's
construction calls for a 2-month mandatory minimum.
The Court of Appeals accepted Granderson's interpreta-
tion, see 969 F. 2d 980 (CA11 1992); returns in other
circuits are divided.
  The -original sentence- prescription of 3565(a) was a
late-hour addition to the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988,
a sprawling enactment that takes up 364 pages in
Statutes at Large.  Pub. L. 100-690, 102 Stat.
4181-4545.  The provision appears not to have received
Congress' careful attention.  It may have been composed,
we suggest below, with the pre-1984 federal sentencing
regime in the drafter's mind; it does not easily adapt to
the regime established by the Sentencing Reform Act of
1984.
  According the statute a sensible construction, we
recognize, in common with all courts that have grappled
with the -original sentence- conundrum, that Congress
prescribed imprisonment as the type of punishment for
drug-possessing probationers.  As to the duration of
that punishment, we rest on the principle that -`the
Court will not interpret a federal criminal statute so as
to increase the penalty . . . when such an interpretation
can be based on no more than a guess as to what
Congress intended.'-  Bifulco v. United States, 447 U. S.
381, 387 (1980), quoting Ladner v. United States, 358
U. S. 169, 178 (1958).  We therefore adopt Granderson's
interpretation and affirm the judgment of the Court of
Appeals.
                      I
 Granderson, a letter carrier, pleaded guilty to one
count of destruction of mail, in violation of 18 U. S. C.
1703(a).  Under the Sentencing Guidelines, the poten-
tial imprisonment range, derived from the character of
the offense and the offender's criminal history category,
was 0-6 months.  The District Court imposed no prison
time, but sentenced Granderson to 5 years' probation
and a $2,000 fine. As a standard condition of proba-
tion, Granderson was required to submit periodically to
urinary testing for illegal drug use.
 Several weeks after his original sentencing, Grander-
son tested positive for cocaine, and his probation officer
petitioned for revocation of the sentence of probation.
Finding that Granderson had possessed cocaine, the
District Court revoked Granderson's sentence of proba-
tion and undertook to resentence him, pursuant to
3565(a), to incarceration for -not less than one-third of
the original sentence.-  The term -original sentence,- the
District Court concluded, referred to the term of proba-
tion actually imposed (60 months) rather than the im-
prisonment range authorized by the Guidelines (0-6
months).  The court accordingly sentenced Granderson
to 20 months' imprisonment.
 The Court of Appeals upheld the revocation of the
sentence of probation but vacated Granderson's new
sentence.  969 F. 2d 980 (CA11 1992).  That court
observed that the probation revocation sentence of 20
months' imprisonment imposed by the District Court
was far longer than the sentence that could have been
imposed either for the underlying crime of destroying
mail (six months) or for the crime of cocaine possession
(one year).  Id., at 983, and n. 2.  The Court of Appeals
called it -legal alchemy- to convert an -original sen-
tence- of -conditional liberty,- with a correspondingly
long term, into a sentence of imprisonment with a time
span geared to the lesser restraint. Id., at 984, quoting
United States v. Gordon, 961 F. 2d 426, 432 (CA3 1992).
Invoking the rule of lenity, id., at 983, the court con-
cluded that the phrase -original sentence- referred to
-the [0-6 month] sentence of incarceration faced by
Granderson under the Guidelines,- not to the 60-month
sentence of probation.  Id., at 984.  Because Granderson
had served 11 months of his revocation sentence-more
than the 6-month maximum-the Court of Appeals
ordered him released from custody.  Id., at 985.
                     II
 The text of 3565(a) reads:
-If the defendant violates a condition of probation at
any time prior to the expiration or termination of
the term of probation, the court may . . .
     -(1) continue him on probation, with or without
extending the term or modifying or enlarging the
conditions; or
     -(2) revoke the sentence of probation and impose
any other sentence that was available . . . at the
time of the initial sentencing.
-Notwithstanding any other provision of this section,
if a defendant is found by the court to be in posses-
sion of a controlled substance . . . the court shall
revoke the sentence of probation and sentence the
defendant to not less than one-third of the original
sentence.-  (Emphasis supplied.)
 The Government argues that the italicized proviso is
unambiguous.  The -original sentence- that establishes
the benchmark for the revocation sentence, the Govern-
ment asserts, can only be the very sentence actually
imposed, i.e., the sentence of probation.  In this case,
the sentence of probation was 60 months; -one-third of
the original sentence- is thus 20 months.  But for two
reasons, the Government continues, Granderson's
20-month revocation sentence must be one of imprison-
ment rather than probation.  First, the contrast in
subsections (1) and (2) between -continu[ing]- and -re-
vok[ing]- probation suggests that a revocation sentence
must be a sentence of imprisonment, not a continuation
of probation.  Second, the Government urges, it would
be absurd to -punish- drug-possessing probationers by
revoking their probation and imposing a new term of
probation no longer than the original.  Congress could
not be taken to have selected drug possessors, from the
universe of all probation violators, for more favorable
treatment, the Government reasons, particularly not
under a provision enacted as part of a statute called
-The Anti-Drug Abuse Act.-
 We agree, for the reasons stated by the Government,
that a revocation sentence must be a term of imprison-
ment.  Otherwise the proviso at issue would make little
sense.  We do not agree, however, that the term -origi-
nal sentence- relates to the duration of the sentence set
for probation.  The statute provides that if a probationer
possesses drugs, -the court shall revoke the sentence of
probation and sentence the defendant to not less than
one-third of the original sentence.-  This language ap-
pears to differentiate, not to equate or amalgamate, -the
sentence of probation- and -the original sentence.-  See
United States v. Penn, __ F. 3d ___, ___ (CA4 1994)
(slip op., at 6) (-a sentence of probation does not equate
to a sentence of incarceration-).  If Congress wished to
convey the meaning pressed by the Government, it could
easily have instructed that the defendant be incarcer-
ated for a term -not less than one-third of the original
sentence of probation,- or -not less than one-third of the
revoked term of probation.-
 The Government's interpretation has a further textual
difficulty.  The Government reads the word -sentence,-
when used as a verb in the proviso's phrase -sentence
the defendant,- to mean -sentence to imprisonment-
rather than -sentence to probation.-  Yet, when the
word -sentence- next appears, this time as a noun
(-original sentence-), the Government reads the word to
mean -sentence of probation.-  Again, had Congress
designed the language to capture the Government's
construction, the proviso might have read: -the court
shall revoke the sentence of probation and sentence the
defendant to a term of imprisonment whose length is not
less than one-third the length of the original sentence of
probation.-  Cf. Reves v. Ernst & Young, 507 U. S. ___,
___ (1993) (slip op., at 7) (-it seems reasonable to give
. . . a similar construction- to a word used as both a
noun and a verb in a single statutory sentence).
 As the Court of Appeals commented, -[p]robation and
imprisonment are not fungible-; they are sentences
fundamentally different in character.  969 F. 2d, at 984.
One-third of a 60-month term of probation or -condi-
tional liberty- is a sentence scarcely resembling a
20-month sentence of imprisonment.  The Government
insists and, as already noted, we agree, that the revoca-
tion sentence, measured as one-third of the -original
sentence,- must be a sentence of imprisonment.  But
that -must be- suggests that -original sentence- refers
the resentencer back to an anterior sentence of impris-
onment, not a sentence of probation.
                     III
 Granderson's reading of the 3565(a) proviso entails
such a reference back.  The words -original sentence,-
he contends, refer back to 3565(a)(2), the prescription
immediately preceding the drug-possession proviso: the
-other sentence that was available under subchapter A
[the general sentencing provisions] at the time of the
initial sentencing.-  The Guidelines sentence of impris-
onment authorized by subchapter A was the -original
sentence,- Granderson argues, for it was the presump-
tive sentence, the punishment that probation, as a
discretionary alternative, replaced.  The Guidelines
range of imprisonment available at Granderson's initial
sentencing for destruction of mail was 0-6 months.
Starting at the top of this range, Granderson arrives at
2 months as the minimum revocation sentence.
                      A
 Granderson's interpretation avoids linguistic anomalies
presented by the Government's construction.  First,
Granderson's reading differentiates, as does the proviso,
between -the sentence of probation- that the resentencer
must revoke and -the original sentence- that determines
the duration of the revocation sentence.  See supra, at
6.  Second, Granderson's construction keeps constant the
meaning of -sentence- in the phrases -sentence the
defendant- and -original sentence.-  See supra, at 6-7.
While the Government cannot easily explain how multi-
plying a sentence of probation by one-third can yield a
sentence of imprisonment, Granderson's construction
encounters no such shoal.  See Gordon, 961 F. 2d, at
433 (-one-third of three years probation is one year
probation, not one year imprisonment-).
 Granderson's reading of the proviso also avoids the
startling disparities in sentencing that would attend the
Government's interpretation.  A 20-month minimum
sentence would exceed not only the 6-month maximum
punishment under the Guidelines for Granderson's
original offense; it would also exceed the one-year statu-
tory maximum, see 21 U. S. C. 844(a), that Grander-
son could have received, had the Government prosecuted
him for cocaine possession and afforded him the full
constitutional protections of a criminal trial, rather than
the limited protections of a revocation hearing.  In-
deed, a 20-month sentence would exceed consecutive
sentences for destruction of mail and cocaine possession
(18 months in all).
 Furthermore, twenty months is only the minimum
revocation sentence, on the Government's reading of the
proviso.  The Government's interpretation would have
allowed the District Court to sentence Granderson to a
term of imprisonment equal in length to the revoked
term of probation.  This prison term-five years-would
be ten times the exposure to imprisonment Granderson
faced under the Guidelines for his original offense, and
five times the applicable statutory maximum for cocaine
possession.  It seems unlikely that Congress could have
intended so to enlarge the District Court's discretion.
See Penn, __ F. 3d, at ___ (slip op., at 6).
                      B
 Two of the Government's arguments against Grander-
son's interpretation are easily answered.  First, the
Government observes that the purpose of the Anti-Drug
Abuse Act was to impose tough sanctions on drug abus-
ers.  See Brief for United States 22-26 (listing new
penalties and quoting statements from members of
Congress that they intended to punish drug offenders
severely).  But we cannot divine from the legislators'
many -get tough on drug offenders- statements any
reliable guidance to particular provisions.  None of the
legislators' expressions, as the Government admits,
focuses on -the precise meaning of the provision at issue
in this case.-  Id., at 24, and n. 4; cf. Busic v. United
States, 446 U. S. 398, 408 (1980) (-[W]hile Congress had
a general desire to deter firearm abuses, that desire
was not unbounded.  Our task here is to locate one of
the boundaries, and the inquiry is not advanced by the
assertion that Congress wanted no boundaries.-).  Under
Granderson's interpretation, moreover, drug possessors
are hardly favored.  Instead, they are singled out among
probation violators for particularly adverse treatment:
They face mandatory, rather than optional, terms of
imprisonment.
 Next, the Government argues that the drug-possession
proviso must be construed in pari materia with the
parallel provision, added at the same time, governing
revocation of supervised release upon a finding of drug
possession.  In the latter provision, the Government
observes, Congress ordered a revocation sentence of -not
less than one-third of the term of supervised release,-
and it expressly provided that the revocation sentence
should be -serve[d] in prison.-  18 U. S. C. 3583(g).
Correspondingly, the Government maintains, the proba-
tion revocation proviso should be construed to require a
minimum prison term of one-third the term of proba-
tion.  The Government acknowledges that, while Con-
gress spelled out -one-third of the term of supervised
release,- Congress did not similarly say -one-third of the
term of probation.-  However, the Government attributes
this difference to the fact that, unlike probation under
the current sentencing regime, supervised release is not
itself an -original sentence,- it is only a component of a
sentence that commences with imprisonment.
 We are not persuaded that the supervised release
revocation prescription should control construction of the
probation revocation proviso.  Supervised release, in
contrast to probation, is not a punishment in lieu of
incarceration.  Persons serving post-incarceration terms
of supervised release generally are more serious offend-
ers than are probationers.  But terms of supervised
release, because they follow up prison terms, are often
shorter than initial sentences of probation.  Thus,
under the Government's in pari materia approach, drug
possessors whose original offense warranted the more
serious sanction of prison plus supervised release would
often receive shorter revocation sentences than would
drug-possessing probationers.
 The Government counters that Congress might have
intended to punish probationers more severely because
they were -extended special leniency.-  Reply Brief for
United States 13, n. 14.  A sentence of probation, how-
ever, even if -lenient,- ordinarily reflects the judgment
that the offense and offender's criminal history were not
so serious as to warrant imprisonment.  In sum, proba-
tion sans imprisonment and supervised release following
imprisonment are sentences of unlike character.  This
fact weighs heavily against the argument that the dis-
crete, differently worded probation and supervised re-
lease revocation provisions should be construed in pari
materia.
                      C
 The history of the probation revocation proviso's enact-
ment gives us additional cause to resist the Govern-
ment's interpretation.  The Anti-Drug Abuse Act, in
which the proviso was included, was a large and com-
plex measure, described by one member of the House of
Representatives as -more like a telephone book than a
piece of legislation.-  134 Cong. Rec. 33290 (1988) (re-
marks of Rep. Conte).  The proviso seems first to have
appeared in roughly its present form as a Senate floor
amendment offered after both the House and the Senate
had passed the bill.  See id., at 24924-24925 (House
passage, Sept. 22); id., at 30826 (Senate passage, Oct.
14); id., at 30945 (proviso included in lengthy set of
amendments proposed by Sen. Nunn, Oct. 14).  No con-
ference report addresses the provision, nor are we aware
of any post-conference discussion of the issue.  The
proviso thus seems to have been inserted into the Anti-
Drug Abuse Act without close inspection.  Cf. United
States v. Bass, 404 U. S. 336, 344 (1971) (applying rule
of lenity, noting that statutory provision -was a last-
minute Senate amendment- to a long and complex bill
and -was hastily passed, with little discussion, no hear-
ings, and no report-).
 Another probation-related provision of the Anti-Drug
Abuse Act, proposed shortly before the proviso, casts
further doubt on the Government's reading.  That provi-
sion amends the prohibition against using or carrying
an explosive in the commission of a federal felony, to
provide in part: -Notwithstanding any other provision of
law, the court shall not place on probation or suspend
the sentence of any person convicted of a violation of
this subsection . . . .-  Pub. L. 100-690, 6474(b), 102
Stat. 4380, codified at 18 U. S. C. 844(h) (emphasis
supplied).  This provision, notwithstanding its 1988 date
of enactment, is intelligible only under pre-1984 law: the
1984 Sentencing Reform Act had abolished suspended
sentences, and the phrase -place on probation- had
yielded to the phrase -impose a sentence of probation.-
 Granderson's counsel suggested at oral argument, see
Tr. of Oral Arg. 22-23, 29-31, 36-41, that the proviso's
drafters might similarly have had in mind the pre-1984
sentencing regime, in particular, the pre-1984 practice of
imposing a sentence of imprisonment, suspending its
execution, and placing the defendant on probation.  See
18 U. S. C. 3651 (1982) (for any offense -not punish-
able by death or life imprisonment,- the court may
-suspend the imposition or execution of sentence and
place the defendant on probation for such period and
upon such terms and conditions as the court deems
best-).  The proviso would fit the suspension-of-execution
scheme precisely: The -original sentence- would be the
sentence imposed but not executed, and one-third of
that determinate sentence would be the revocation
sentence.  In that application, the proviso would avoid
incongruities presented in Granderson's and the Govern-
ment's interpretations of the words -original sentence-:
an imposed, albeit unexecuted, term of imprisonment
would be an actual rather than a merely available
sentence, and one-third of that sentence would be a
term of imprisonment, not probation.  If Granderson
could demonstrate that the proviso's drafters in fact
drew the prescription to match the pre-1984 suspension-
of-execution scheme, Granderson's argument would be
all the more potent: The closest post-1984 analogue to
the suspended sentence is the Guidelines sentence of
imprisonment that could have been implemented, but
was held back in favor of a probation sentence.
 We cannot say with assurance that the proviso's draft-
ers chose the term -original sentence- with a view to-
ward pre-1984 law.  The unexacting process by which
the proviso was enacted, however, and the evident
anachronism in another probation-related section of the
Anti-Drug Abuse Act, leave us doubtful that it was
Congress' design to punish drug-possessing probationers
with the extraordinarily disproportionate severity the
Government urges.
 In these circumstances-where text, structure, and
history fail to establish that the Government's position
is unambiguously correct-we apply the rule of lenity
and resolve the ambiguity in Granderson's favor.  See,
e.g., Bass, 404 U. S., at 347-349.  We decide that the
-original sentence- that sets the duration of the revoca-
tion sentence is the applicable Guidelines sentence of
imprisonment, not the revoked term of probation.
                     IV
 We turn, finally, to the Government's argument that
Granderson's theory, and the Court of Appeals' analysis,
are fatally flawed because the Guidelines specify not a
term but a range-in this case, 0-6 months.  Calculat-
ing the minimum revocation sentence as one-third of
that range, the mandatory minimum term of imprison-
ment would be 0-2 months, the Government asserts,
which would permit a perverse result: A resentencing
court could revoke a drug possessor's sentence of proba-
tion, and then impose no sentence at all.  Recognizing
this curiosity, lower courts have used not 0-6 months as
their starting place, but the top of that range, as the
-original sentence,- which yields two months as the
minimum revocation sentence.  The Government com-
plains that no court has explained why the top, rather
than the middle or the bottom of the range, is the
appropriate point of reference.
 The reason for starting at the top of the range, how-
ever, is evident: No other solution yields as sensible a
response to the -original sentence- conundrum.  Four
measures of the minimum revocation sentence could be
hypothesized as possibilities, if the applicable Guidelines
range is the starting point: The sentence could be calcu-
lated as (1) one-third of the Guidelines maximum, (2)
one-third of the Guidelines minimum, (3) one-third of
some point between the minimum and maximum, such
as the midpoint, or (4) one-third of the range itself.
The latter two possibilities can be quickly eliminated.
Selecting a point between minimum and maximum,
whether the midpoint or some other point, would be
purely arbitrary.  Calculating the minimum revocation
sentence as one-third of the Guidelines range, in practi-
cal application, yields the same result as setting the
minimum revocation sentence at one-third of the Guide-
lines minimum: To say, for example, that a 2-4 month
sentence is the minimum revocation sentence is effec-
tively to say that a 2-month sentence is the minimum.
 Using the Guidelines minimum in cases such as the
present one (0-6 month range), as already noted, would
yield a minimum revocation sentence of zero, a result
incompatible with the apparent objective of the provi-
so-to assure that those whose probation is revoked for
drug possession serve a term of imprisonment.  The
maximum Guidelines sentence as the benchmark for the
revocation sentence, on the other hand, is -a sensible
construction- that avoids attributing to the legislature
either -an unjust or an absurd conclusion.-  In re
Chapman, 166 U. S. 661, 667 (1897).
                      V
 We decide, in sum, that the drug-possession proviso of
3565(a) establishes a mandatory minimum sentence of
imprisonment, but we reject the Government's contention
that the proviso unambiguously calls for a sentence
based on the term of probation rather than the origi-
nally applicable Guidelines range of imprisonment.
Granderson's interpretation, if not flawless, is a securely
plausible reading of the statutory language, and it
avoids the textual difficulties and sentencing disparities
we identified in the Government's position.  In these
circumstances, in common with the Court of Appeals, we
apply the rule of lenity and resolve the ambiguity in
Granderson's favor.  The minimum revocation sentence,
we hold, is one-third the maximum of the originally
applicable Guidelines range, and the maximum revo-
cation sentence is the Guidelines maximum.
 In this case, the maximum revocation sentence is 6
months.  Because Granderson had served 11 months
imprisonment by the time the Court of Appeals issued
its decision, that court correctly ordered his release.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore

                                    Affirmed.