The justices granted and consolidated a pair of petitions by three defendants convicted of charges related to bank robberies. The defendants were originally sentenced to more than 300 years in prison, but later had parts of their convictions vacated and argued for lesser punishments following the passage of the FSA.
The order marks the latest action by the Supreme Court to clarify language in the criminal justice reform law after divisions emerged across the circuits. In March, the justices issued a 6-3 decision backing a strict view of a section of the law that allows certain nonviolent drug offenders to qualify for relief from mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines.
The petitioners in the current cases — Tony Hewitt, Corey Duffey and Jarvis Ross — were prosecuted under a federal law that carries a mandatory minimum of five years in prison for the first conviction, and a mandatory minimum of 25 years for each subsequent conviction. They argued in the petitions that they should benefit from the First Step Act, which did away with this practice of "sentence stacking" by establishing a five-year mandatory minimum across the board.
The petitioners said there is an acknowledged circuit split on whether the FSA's sentencing provisions apply to defendants who were originally sentenced before it was enacted. The Third and Ninth Circuits adopted their favored method, they said, but the Fifth Circuit, which heard their appeal, and the Sixth, have held that the act doesn't apply to defendants like them.
But the government concedes that the Fifth Circuit's reasoning was wrong, Duffey and Ross argued, as section 403(b) of the FSA reduces sentences "whenever a sentence is imposed after the law went into effect." The language and grammar used in that subsection shows that Congress intended for it to be applied at post-enactment resentencing hearings, Duffey and Ross said.
The U.S. Solicitor General's Office submitted a memorandum arguing that the Supreme Court should deny the defendants' petitions. The government said it agreed that the best reading of the FSA is that it applies to post-enactment resentencings, but "the disagreement in the courts of appeals is shallow and recent."
"The prospective practical importance of the issue, moreover, is limited, and legislation introduced in Congress may provide relief to petitioners and other defendants who were originally sentenced before the First Step Act's enactment," the government's petition reads.
Lawyers for the petitioners applauded the top court's decision to consider the issue.
"The First Step Act is a bipartisan criminal justice reform law, and the government agrees that it applies here and that Tony Hewitt should have been resentenced," Hewitt's attorney Michael Kimberly of McDermott Will & Emery LLP said in a statement. "Courts are supposed to apply statutes according to their plain terms, read in light of the ordinary rules of grammar, even when doing so produces results that judges may not like. That didn't happen here."
Neal Katyal, who represents Duffey and Ross, said the court's move was welcome.
"We are grateful that the Supreme Court is hearing our case and we look forward to the court's resolution of it," he said.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The government is represented by Elizabeth Prelogar, Nicole Argentieri and Andrew C. Noll of the U.S. Solicitor General's Office.
Duffey is represented by Vivek Jampala and John Hunter of Hunter Lane & Jampala.
Jarvis Ross is represented by Kevin Ross of the Law Offices of Kevin Ross.
Duffey and Ross are additionally represented by Neal Katyal, Jo-Ann Sagar and Michael West of Hogan Lovells US LLP.
Hewitt is represented by Michael Kimberly and Charles Seidell of McDermott Will & Emery LLP and Russell Wilson II of the Law Office of Russell Wilson II.
The cases are Hewitt v. USA, case number 23-1002 and Duffey et al. v. USA, case number 23-1150, in the Supreme Court of the United States.
--Additional reporting by Stewart Bishop. Editing by Alex Hubbard.
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