Drawing on a centuries-long tradition of granting wide discretion to judges when imposing sentences, the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 allows federal judges to reduce a previously imposed sentence when they conclude that there are “extraordinary and compelling reasons” to do so. 

In 2021, exercising that discretionary authority, the district court judge in this case reduced the mandatory life sentence that Joe Fernandez is currently serving for a crime that he maintains he did not commit. Though the sentencing judge who agreed to reduce the sentence had been the one to preside over Fernandez’s trial, he explained that he still harbored a “certain disquiet” about the verdict. This disquiet contributed to his belief that there were “extraordinary and compelling reasons” to reduce Fernandez’s sentence. 

The Second Circuit reversed the district court judge’s decision to grant the motion, holding that the sentencing judge could not consider his disquiet about the verdict in a motion for compassionate release because, in its view, concerns about the validity of a verdict can only be considered in response to a petition under 25 U.S.C. § 2255. In August 2025, CAC filed an amicus brief explaining that this position is at odds with both the text and history of the compassionate release statute.   

The text of Section 3582(c)(1)(A) of the Sentencing Reform Act gives judges broad discretion to determine the existence of “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for a sentence reduction. The statute contains only one instruction about the scope of judges’ authority to assess the “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for compassionate release: courts must abide by the Sentencing Commission’s policy statements. And in tasking the Sentencing Commission with providing guidance on what should be considered “extraordinary and compelling reasons,” it provides only one stipulation: “[r]ehabilitation of the defendant alone shall not be considered an extraordinary and compelling reason.” The clear inference is that other reasons are permissible within a judge’s discretion.  

Congress’s use of the phrase “extraordinary and compelling” bears this out. In 1984, the phrase “extraordinary and compelling reasons” connoted determinations that were broad, individualized, and fact-dependent. The plain language of the statute indicates that the sentencing judge should make an individualized assessment of the case, considering all relevant factors, to decide whether there were “extraordinary and compelling reasons” to reduce the individual’s sentence, and no factors other than rehabilitation alone should be categorically excluded. Legal dictionaries and case law at the time reinforce this definition. 

Section 3582(c)(1)(A)’s history confirms the broad discretion it grants to sentencing judges. Before the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, courts imposed the sentence, but parole officers exercised absolute discretion over the actual duration of imprisonment. Congress felt that the system of indeterminate sentencing had unjustified consequences, like creating uncertainty as to the time an offender would actually spend in prison, producing serious disparities between sentences imposed for similar offenses, and letting parole boards usurp the function of the judiciary. In response to these concerns, the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 revolutionized the federal sentencing scheme, creating a more structured system with a compassionate release provision acting as a “safety valve” in unusual cases. Lawmakers described this safety valve authority as a response to judges’ requests for the power to deal with what one congressman described as “the very exceptional situation where someone obviously slips through the cracks and gets a much longer sentence.” In granting judges this “safety valve” authority, Congress ensured that they would have the same broad discretion to consider a wide variety of different factors that parole officials had enjoyed under the previous regime.  

The lower court incorrectly held that the sentencing judge could not consider Mr. Fernandez’s arguments about his “potential innocence” in a motion under § 3582(C)(1)(A) because, in its view, those claims were only “cognizable under section 2255,” which delineates how federal prisoners may file habeas petitions. But the statutes are completely different. Section 2255 provides federal prisoners with a means to “attack” or “test the legality” of their detention, and ultimately results in a sentence being completely vacated. In seeking compassionate release, prisoners do not argue that they are imprisoned without sufficient cause. Rather, they argue that they should be released from prison without invalidating the underlying conviction. As congressional debates make clear, the lawmakers who enacted § 3582(C)(1)(A) understood that compassionate release and § 2255 performed completely different functions. 

The court below was wrong to prohibit the sentencing judge from considering his “disquiet” about the verdict when reducing Mr. Fernandez’s life sentence, and the Supreme Court should reverse.