Hecker Fink Files Amicus Brief in U.S. Supreme Court in Consolidated Cases Rutherford v. United States and Carter v. Unites States

Hecker Fink LLP recently filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Former Commissioners of the U.S. Sentencing Commission in the consolidated cases Rutherford v. United States (No. 24-820) and Carter v. United States (No. 24-860), which ask the Court to assess the validity of the Commission’s recent policy statement clarifying when defendants may be eligible for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i).  

The Commission’s policy statement—enacted following input from judges, prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, legislators, scholars, religious leaders, inmates, and advocacy groups—serves to remedy profound sentencing disparities. Specifically, the Commission’s policy statement allows for a discretionary sentence reduction where the defendant has served at least ten years of an unusually long sentence, and there is a gross disparity between the unusually long sentence and the sentence likely to be imposed today for the same conduct.  

Hecker Fink’s brief, which can be read here, urges the Supreme Court to assign substantial weight to the Commission’s policy statement and (even if assessed independently) to uphold the policy statement. As argued in the brief, Congress established the Commission to play an authoritative role in federal sentencing law, and the text, structure, and context to 28 U.S.C. § 994(t) all reflect that the Commission’s policy statement should receive substantial weight.

The Hecker Fink team includes Joshua Matz, Trisha Anderson, and Stephen Prifti.