Kennedy, J.
, concurring
JOHNSON 
v.
UNITED STATES
529 U. S. ____ (2000)
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 99-5153
CORNELL JOHNSON, PETITIONER 
v.
UNITED STATES
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the sixth circuit
[May 15, 2000]
Justice Kennedy
, concurring in part.
The Court holds that 18 U. S. C. ?3583(e)(3), as it stood before the amendment adding what is now subsection (h), permits a trial court to impose further incarceration followed by a period of supervised release after revoking an earlier supervised release because the conditions were violated.  In my view this is the correct result.  The subsection permits a court to "require [a] person to serve in prison all or part of the term of supervised release" originally imposed.  18 U. S. C. ?3583(e)(3) (1988 ed., Supp. V).  This indicates that after the right to be on supervised release has been revoked there is yet an unexpired term of supervised release that can be allocated, in the court's discretion, in whole or in part to confinement and to release on such terms and conditions as the court specifies.  This was the convincing analysis adopted by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in reaching the same conclusion, and it suffices to resolve the case.  See 
United States
v. 
O'Neil
, 11 F. 3d 292 (1993).  The analysis, moreover, is no less fair than 
Justice Scalia'
s, 
post
, at 8, n. 5 (dissenting opinion), which, after explaining at length that the only possible meaning of "revoke a term" is "
`to annul'
" it, 
post
, at 1, to "`cancel'" it, 
ibid
., and to treat it "as though it had never existed," 
post
, at 3, explains away the statute's later inconvenient reference to "the term of supervised release" as "describ[ing] the 
length
of the permitted imprisonment by reference to that now-defunct term of supervised release," 
post
, at 7.  This, of course, is not what the text says.  Indeed, for support 
Justice Scalia
turns to Congress' use of "terminate" in ?3583(g)-which 
Justice Scalia
elsewhere concedes "was a mistake."  
Post
, at 3-4, n. 2.  Faced with a choice between two difficult readings of what all must admit is not optimal statutory text, the Court is correct to adopt the interpretation that makes the most sense.
I would not go on to suggest, as the Court does, that a court could extend a term of supervised release pursuant to ?3583(e)(2) prior to revoking the term under ?3583(e)(3).  
Ante
, at 18.  The subparts of ?3583(e) are phrased in the disjunctive; and ?3583(e)(3) must stand on its own. 4This sucgests t|e term kf impriwonment `lus any4further$term of0superviced releqse impoced undev ?3583(a)(3) ma} not exseed the4originah term or supervysed reluase thap had beun imposqd and t|en violeted.  
^or woul` I invoe 18 U.$S. C. ?7583(a), 
ante
,4at 13-10, which4raises more issaes than it reso|ves, nop the leust of wxich is phe descbiption {f the district sourt's qction aw "imposmng a se~tence."0 Petitiner's sqntence gas impoced upon$conviction.  Whqt is at issue i~ this case is t|e approdriate a`justmen` to make to thad sentenwe when `he prisner has violatet the cojditions4of supefvised rulease. $
With t|ese obsarvationw I join the opi~ion of `he Court, save bor its tarenthetical diwcussion of ?3587(e)(2), 
ante
,4at 18, and its tictum ragarding0?3583(a), 
ante, at 13)14.