Rutherford v. United States · ¶83

Start with the terms “extraordinary” and “compelling.” Rather than imposing any bright-line limits on courts' discretion to consider or weigh information, these terms invite open-ended, fact- and context-specific inquiries into the totality of the circumstances in individual cases to determine whether they rise to an unusual level. In other words, whether a given set of reasons is “extraordinary and compelling” as applied to a particular defendant's case is a question of degree, not of kind.

preliminary print (page proof)
Source edition
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.