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How High Court May Rule In First Step Act Resentencing Case
By Stephen Braga and Sophia Evans ( February 3 , 2025 , 3:49 PM EST )
The First Step Act was enacted in 2018 to provide an avenue for potential relief from unfairly long sentences to certain defendants in the criminal justice system .
Section 403 ( b ) of the act defines these defendants as those for whom " a sentence has not been imposed as of the date of the enactment ."
There are two different categories of defendants who might fit this bill : ( 1 ) defendants who have never been sentenced , and ( 2 ) defendants who are waiting to be resentenced .[ 1 ]
A consolidated case argued on Jan . 13 at the U . S . Supreme Court — Hewitt v . U . S . — concerns the latter category .[ 2 ]
Stephen Braga
The bottom-line question before the court is whether defendants in this category — ones who have , by definition , already been sentenced once — should be treated as if that prior sentence had not been imposed for purposes of the FSA because that sentence was subsequently vacated .
This seemingly terse academic question has huge potential real-world consequences . If Tony Hewitt , Corey Duffey and Jarvis Ross do not qualify for relief under the FSA , they will each face a sentencing exposure of 80 years more than if they do qualify .
Sophia Evans
Background
Beginning in the first year of law school , lawyers are taught that the key question in any case of statutory interpretation is divining the legislature ' s intent in enacting the statute . What was the legislature trying to achieve ? What was its purpose ?
Ordinarily , the answer to that question is resolved by the statutory language itself . When that language is plain , it is controlling , and courts are instructed to go no further .
Sometimes , however , the language used by the legislature is ambiguous . When that happens , the courts are permitted to use a variety of other means in the search for legislative intent , including — as Justice Neil Gorsuch posited during oral arguments — the meaning of verb tenses learned in " high school grammar ."[ 3 ]