Consider this code example:
if (condition) {
return value1
} else {
do something
do somethingElse
etc
etc
}
Since the if block exits unconditionally, the else may be pruned and the code then becomes:
if (condition1) {
return value1
}
do something
do somethingElse
etc
etc
This rule will only trigger if the number of statements in the else block is greater than or equal to a certain threshold, which is configurable (it is 5 by default).