Rutherford v. United States · ¶34

The disparity created by Congress's amendment to § 924(c) does not satisfy this definition. Far from “extraordinary,” nonretroactive amendments to criminal penalties are the norm. “Ordinarily,” we have explained, “statutory changes to federal penalties only benefit future offenders.” Hewitt, 606 U. S., at 424; see 1 U. S. C. § 109. Congress sometimes deviates from the default, as it did in the Act, by extending the revised penalties to defendants not yet sentenced. Even then, some measure of prospectivity is par for the course: The “ordinary practice” is to “withhol[d] that change from defendants already sentenced.” Dorsey v. United States, 567 U. S. 260, 280 (2012). And regardless of whether the line is drawn at the offense or the sentence, a nonretroactive penalty change necessarily creates a disparity between those who receive the benefit and those who do not. See ibid.…

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