Fernandez v. United States · ¶57

The First Step Act of 2018 expanded district courts' authority to “reduce [a] term of imprisonment” upon a finding that “extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a reduction” and that the reduced sentence is consistent with traditional sentencing factors. 18 U. S. C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). For many of the reasons explained in Justice Jackson's dissenting opinion, the Court's decision interpreting that provision today is wrong. The majority improperly narrows the scope of § 3582(c)(1)(A) based on tenuous inferences drawn from the federal habeas statutes. Its habeas-based rule distorts and expands the Court's habeas-channeling cases, creating an atextual limitation found nowhere in § 3582(c)(1)(A). In doing so, it superimposes a technical, and likely unworkable, habeas analysis on top of a sentence-reduction framework that broadly calls for holistic review. Moreover, the rule adopted…

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