Grant

We address whether rehabilitation can be considered for purposes of imposing imprisonment upon revocation of supervised release.

I. Facts.

Leon W. Grant’s offense of conviction was fraud on two banks. By various means, he sought to enrich himself at the banks’ expense with counterfeit checks. He was sentenced in 2004 to one day of prison on each count and five years of supervised release, plus $38,598.44 in restitution (he had attempted to obtain about half this amount, his partner about the same). Grant’s supervised release sentence included mandatory participation in substance abuse and mental health programs, drug testing, and a prohibition on alcohol consumption.

Close to the end of the five years of supervised release, Grant was caught violating its terms in numerous ways. Several of the violations involved cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol, the substances that had concerned the court at his initial sentencing. He had also been hospitalized after an overdose in a possible suicide attempt. The court revoked his supervised release and sentenced him to three months of prison and another lengthy period, 57 months, of supervised release.

Grant was charged again, several…