Brief filed: 08/11/2025
Documents
Fernandez v. United States
United States Supreme Court; Case No. 24-556
Argument(s)
For its first 34 years, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) was essentially dormant. Between 1984 and late 2018—from when Congress enacted that statute to when it authorized defendants to file motions under the statute—only the Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) could file § 3582(c)(1)(A) motions and it almost never did. The Sentencing Commission, for its part, wholly acquiesced to the BOP: Although Congress in 1984 directed the Commission to promulgate a policy statement describing what should be considered “extraordinary and compelling reasons” to reduce a sentence, 28 U.S.C. § 994(t), for decades the Commission ignored this task. Eventually, it declared that circumstances could be considered “extraordinary and compelling,” whenever the BOP said they were extraordinary and compelling. After this 34-year period of inaction, one might assume that § 3582(c)(1)(A) operates as the BOP has chosen to apply it—like a narrow “compassionate release” provision focused on medical circumstances (and that mostly does not get used even in dire medical circumstances). But § 3582(c)(1)(A) by its terms has never been limited in this way; rather, it authorizes sentencing courts to reduce prison sentences (not necessarily to release) for “extraordinary and compelling reasons,” subject to Sentencing Commission guidance and after considering the purposes of sentencing. As this Court considers whether to interpret § 3582(c)(1)(A)’s reference to “extraordinary and compelling reasons” as imposing categorical limits not found in statutory text, it should resist notions about § 3582(c)(1)(A) that come from post-enactment BOP practice. That is, the Court should consider § 3582(c)(1)(A)’s text within the historical context in which Congress adopted it.
Author(s)
Joshua L. Dratel, Co-Chair, NACDL Amicus Commitee, Law Offices of Dratel and Lewis, New York, NY; Jessica Stengel, Benjamin Flick, Renee Pietropaolo, Daniel Habib, and Judith H. Mizner, National Association of Federal Defenders; Erica Zunkel, University of Chicago Law School Criminal & Juvenile Justice Clinic, Chicago, IL; Shelley Fite, Federal Public and Community Defenders, Madison, WI; Shanna Rifkin, FAMM, Washington DC
