I have previously blogged here and here about the US Sentencing Commission’s decision to amend the so-called commpassionate release guideline, formally “§ 1B1.13 – Reduction in Term of Imprionment under 18 U.S.C § 3582(c)(1)(A) (policy statement).” There are lots of intricate elemens to this amendment, and one key provision concerned the authority of judges to consider “changes in the law” as a basis to satisfy the statutory requirement of finding “extraordinary and compelling reason” for a sentence reduction.
This issue was the only one clearly dividing the new Commissioners: four Commissioners voted for a new provision — § 1B1.13(b)(6) — that expressly states that, in certain circumstances, “changes in the law … may be considered in determining whether the defendant presents an extraordinary and compelling reason, but only where such change would produce a gross disparity between the sentence being served and the sentence likely to be imposed at the time the motion is filed, and after full consideration of the defendant’s individualized circumstances.” Three other Commissioners voted againt this provision because they did not believe the USSC should ever allow “changes in the law” to be considered in determining whether a defendant presents and “extraordinary and compelling reason” for a sentence reduction.
A helpful reader sent me an Eighth Circuit opinion, US v. Rodriguez-Mendez, No. 22-2399 (8th Cir. April 25, 2023) (available here), that seems to misread just what the USSC has done with this...
