Fernandez v. United States · ¶89

The majority nevertheless insists on categorically excluding one potential ground for compassionate release—any consideration that supposedly “attacks the validity of [a] conviction” or sentence. Ante, at 415. One glaring faw with this analysis is the majority's failure to clearly establish when this forbidden circumstance arises; that is, what, exactly, does it mean for a prisoner to collaterally attack his conviction in the context of a compassionate-release motion? It is not hard to see how one man's collateral attack is another man's compelling bid for compassion.

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