Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
In a 6-3 ruling on Friday, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that a man convicted of methamphetamine distribution was not entitled to the “safety-valve relief” provided by the First Step Act. The First Step Act is a criminal justice reform legislation signed into law by former President Donald Trump in 2018. Three dissenting justices viewed this ruling as a betrayal and a breach of the “promise” made by Congress.
Mark Pulsifer, who is facing a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years, has taken legal action by filing a petition for a writ of certiorari in 2022. He is seeking the intervention of the high court to resolve a circuit split regarding the interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1). This particular statute addresses the limitation of mandatory minimum sentences in cases where a defendant lacks the following criteria: “(A) more than 4 criminal history points, excluding any criminal history points resulting from a 1-point offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines; (B) a prior 3-point offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines; and (C) a prior 2-point violent offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines.”
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Pulsifer’s lawyers highlight that his criminal record does not involve a two-point violent offense. They argue that the disagreement with the government mainly revolves around the interpretation of the word “and” in the statute.
The petition raises the question of whether § 3553(f)(1) should be interpreted conjunctively or disjunctively. In other words, does a defendant need to satisfy all three requirements (A), (B), and (C) to meet the criteria of § 3553(f)(1) (conjunctive reading), or can they have none of the requirements (A), (B), or (C) (disjunctive reading)? The Ninth Circuit, relying on the ordinary meaning of the word “and,” has taken the conjunctive approach and ruled in favor of the defendant. On the other hand, the Eighth Circuit, along with the Seventh Circuit, has adopted the disjunctive interpretation, explicitly rejecting the Ninth Circuit’s perspective and asserting that “and” should be understood as “or.”
Justice Elena Kagan penned the opinion on Friday, with all her colleagues, except for Justices Neil Gorsuch, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Sonia Sotomayor, concurring.
Justices Sotomayor, Thomas, and Gorsuch Take Center Stage in Unusual Majority Ruling on First Step Act Case
In Pulsifer’s case, the ruling by the majority stated that a defendant can only receive “safety valve relief” if they do not possess all three of the listed items. To be more specific, this means that the defendant should not have four criminal-history points, a prior three-point offense, or a prior two-point violent offense.
According to Kagan, the paragraph establishes a list of requirements that a defendant must meet in order to be considered eligible. She emphasized the importance of satisfying each and every one of these conditions. To illustrate this point, she provided a concrete example for interpretation.
All student-athletes are eligible for an academic scholarship, provided that the student during the previous semester did not—
(A) fail a course;
(B) commit plagiarism; and
(C) get arrested.
Kagan acknowledged that Pulsifer’s interpretation of “and” is grammatically possible. However, she found the opposite interpretation to be more compelling, as she demonstrated with her hypothetical.
The majority opinion stated that for a student to argue that they are still eligible for a scholarship despite failing a course, committing plagiarism, and evading arrest, would require a lot of confidence. They acknowledged that this interpretation, as put forth by Pulsifer, is grammatically possible. However, they also pointed out that the opposite interpretation, which states that a student must meet all three conditions, is equally valid. When considering the actual content of the policy and taking into account our knowledge of academic scholarships, it is clear that the revised hypothetical cannot be read in Pulsifer’s way.
In a dissent spanning 33 pages, Justice Gorsuch, along with Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, expressed their disagreement with the majority’s interpretation of the language, which they believed would make it more difficult for individuals to seek sentencing relief. Gorsuch emphasized that what may appear to be a minor difference in opinion would have far-reaching consequences, affecting thousands of people.
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Gorsuch expressed concern that by adopting the government’s preferred interpretation, thousands more individuals within the federal criminal justice system would be denied even the possibility of receiving a personalized sentence. He argued that the First Step Act, in this regard, offers no hope for these individuals. Furthermore, Justice Gorsuch criticized the government’s willingness to set aside ordinary meaning and contextual clues in statutory interpretation, as well as the abandonment of the traditional approach of strict construction of penal laws. Instead, he observed that policy considerations, which should not be a part of the equation, have taken precedence. Respectfully, he disagreed with all of these deviations from established principles.
His colleagues escalated their criticism, accusing the majority of making an anti-liberty ruling driven by a regrettable decision to disregard the law’s ordinary and most natural meaning. As a result, they reneged on the congressional promise that the First Step Act offered to Pulsifer and others in similar circumstances: the opportunity for individualized sentencing and just a chance for a fresh start. Here’s what Gorsuch had to say:
It is a regrettable choice that requires us to abandon one principle of statutory interpretation after another. We must read words into the law; we must delete others. We must ignore Congress’s use of a construction that tends to avoid, not invite, questions about implicit distribution. We must dismiss Congress’s variations in usage as sloppy mistakes. Never mind that Congress distributed phrases expressly when it wanted them to repeat in the safety valve. Never mind that Congress used “or” when it sought an efficient way to hinge eligibility for relief based on a single characteristic. We must then read even more words yet into the law to manufacture a superfluity problem that does not exist. We must elevate unexpressed congressional purposes over statutory text. Finally, rather than resolve any reasonable doubt about statutory meaning in favor of the individual, we must prefer a more punitive theory the government only recently engineered. Today, the Court indulges each of these moves. All to what end? To deny some individuals a chance—just a chance—at relief from mandatory minimums and a sentence that fits them and their circumstances. It is a chance Congress promised in the First Step Act, and it is a promise this Court should have honored. Respectfully, I dissent.
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