Fernandez v. United States · ¶75

The text alone suffces to dispel the habeas-related limitation myth the majority adopts today. But, as is often true of statutes, it is not possible to fully understand the compassionate-release provision without appreciating its statutory and legislative history. See R. Katzmann, Judging Statutes 31 (2014) (“The task of the judge is to make sense of legislation in a way that is faithful to Congress's purposes”). The historical context under which § 3582(c)(1)(A) emerged and developed is “the water in which [the text] swim[s].” United States v. Hansen, 599 U. S. 762, 775 (2023). Notably absent from this history is any indication that Congress understood § 2255 to implicitly limit the scope of compassionate release, either when it first enacted § 3582(c)(1)(A) in 1984 or when it amended the provision in 2018.

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