WASHINGTON, DC – Following the Supreme Court’s decision this morning in Rutherford v. United States and Carter v. United States, consolidated cases in which the Court considered the scope of a sentencing judge’s discretion to grant compassionate release under the Sentencing Reform Act, Constitutional Accountability Center Senior Appellate Counsel Smita Ghosh issued the following reaction:

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. Petitioners Rutherford and Carter moved for reductions in their sentences under the Sentencing Reform Act, relying in part on the significant differences between the sentences they are serving and the sentences that they would have received if they were sentenced for the same offenses today.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruled today that—despite the breadth of the term “extraordinary and compelling”—judges cannot consider this difference when reducing their sentences.

This is wrong. As CAC’s brief in this case explained, Congress created the compassionate release provision—and used the words “extraordinary” and “compelling”—in response to requests from sentencing judges for broad authority to take a “second look” at previously imposed sentences to prevent unfairness. And as Justice Sotomayor emphasized in dissent, this approach is supported by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the entity to which Congress gave the authority to issue guidance on how and when to grant compassionate release.

The Court’s majority ignored the statute’s text and history, as well as the Commission’s guidance, in its decision today. This decision will not only affect federal prisoners seeking compassion, but undermine the Court’s own instruction that a text-and-history approach should apply to every case, no matter who brings it.