Rutherford v. United States · ¶103

Further, this Court has also acknowledged that, apart from a defendant's personal circumstances, compassionate release might be appropriate to reduce a sentence to account for later legal developments. In fact, in Setser v. United States, 566 U. S. 231 (2012), the Court addressed whether federal courts have authority to order federal sentences to run consecutively to anticipated state sentences that have not yet been imposed. Id., at 233. After holding such sentences to be permissible, Justice Scalia explained that, when unexpected sentencing developments in state court “produc[e] unfairness to the defendant,” the Sentencing Reform Act “provides a mechanism for relief”: compassionate release under § 3582(c)(1)(A). Id., at 242–243. These examples confirm that courts have historically considered postsentencing legal developments beyond a defendant's personal circumstances.

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