The US Supreme Court this morning hears oral argument in two cases involving application of 18 U.S.C. §3582(c)(2), which allows a federal judge to modify a federal prison term for a "defendant who has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment based on a sentencing range that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing Commission." Here are links to the SCOTUSblog case pages and previews for both cases (the second preview I authored):
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of current federal prisoners might have their sentences directly impacted by these cases. Table 8 of the US Sentencing Commission's latest report on retroactive application of the reduction of the drug guidelines suggests that over 750 defendants may have been denied a reduced sentence based on the issue to be considered in Hughes and that nearly 3000 defendants may have been denied a reduced sentence based on the issue to be considered in Koons. And, as always with criminal justice cases these days, I am especially interested to see if and how the new guy, Justice Gorsuch, approaches and frame the issue under consideration.
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