Supreme Court Limits Compassionate Release Under First Step Act

The Supreme Court ruled last week that compassionate release cannot be used to revisit doubts about a conviction or to reduce a sentence that would be considered excessive by today’s penalties. The rulings addressed two scenarios that some federal courts had previously allowed under the First Step Act.

Judges had sometimes granted release when a sentence would be shorter under current law or when questions existed about the original conviction.

Compassionate release has existed in federal law since 1984. Courts could reduce a sentence for “extraordinary and compelling” reasons, but only the Bureau of Prisons could file the motion. A 2013 Department of Justice report found an average of 24 releases per year under that system.

The First Step Act changed the process by allowing incarcerated people to file motions directly with a judge. Successful motions rose from roughly 24 per year to 481 out of 2,500 applications in fiscal year 2024, according to U.S. Sentencing Commission data.

In one case, the court held that a sentence longer than current law would impose is not an extraordinary and compelling reason for release. The majority said Congress’s choice not to apply new sentencing rules retroactively is a common decision and therefore not extraordinary.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission had issued a 2023 policy statement allowing judges to consider unusually long sentences under specific circumstances. The three liberal justices dissented, arguing that Congress assigned the commission, not the court, to define the standard.

In the second case, the court ruled that questions about the validity of a conviction are also not valid grounds for compassionate release. The majority said the term “compassionate release” indicates the law focuses on mercy rather than correcting legal errors.