After the First Step Act and the US Sentencing Commission stepped in to expand compassionate release of inmates from prison, a new opinion by the Supreme Court limits it.
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Compassionate release has long been a narrow but morally significant corner of the federal criminal justice system. Designed as a safety valve in an otherwise rigid sentencing framework, it has evolved over decades from a rarely used mechanism for the terminally ill into a broader tool for reconsidering sentences in light of changing human and legal realities. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Rutherford v. United States marks a decisive turn in that evolution, pulling the doctrine back toward its more limited origins and rejecting a more expansive vision embraced by the U.S. Sentencing Commission just a few years ago.
Compassionate release emerged from the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, a statute better known for eliminating parole and ushering in the modern era of determinate sentencing. In a system that prioritized uniformity, finality, and longer criminal sentences, Congress recognized the need for a limited escape valve. The statute allowed courts to reduce a sentence if “extraordinary and compelling reasons” justified doing so, but only upon motion by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
For decades, that authority was used sparingly. The BOP treated compassionate release primarily as a humanitarian measure reserved for prisoners facing imminent death or severe medical deterioration. They also rarely grant them. Early regulatory guidance reflected this understanding, emphasizing circumstances such as terminal illness, debilitating physical conditions, or extreme age-related decline.
The Sentencing Commission reinforced this narrow scope in its policy statements. By the late 2000s, four core categories defined “extraordinary and compelling reasons”: serious medical conditions, advanced age, certain family emergencies, and a limited catchall provision controlled by the BOP. Even then, compassionate release remained rare. The process depended on the Bureau’s initiative, and historically, the agency filed very few motions.
That narrow conception began to change with the First Step Act of 2018, one of the most consequential criminal justice reforms in a generation. While the Act is often remembered for reducing certain mandatory minimums and addressing sentencing disparities, it also quietly transformed compassionate release in a fundamental way.
With this, prisoners themselves could now file motions for compassionate release after exhausting administrative remedies. This eliminated the BOP as the sole gatekeeper and opened the courthouse doors to thousands of incarcerated individuals who previously had no practical avenue for relief.
With that change came a wave of litigation and a broader judicial understanding of what might constitute “extraordinary and compelling” reasons. Courts, now operating without updated guidance from the Sentencing Commission, began to exercise independent judgment. Many continued to focus on medical issues, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, but others began to look beyond traditional humanitarian grounds.
Many believed that compassionate release could serve not only as a response to personal hardship, but also as a limited mechanism to address inequities embedded in sentencing law itself.
The expansion of compassionate release reached a turning point with cases involving long sentences imposed under outdated statutory schemes. One of the most prominent examples involved 18 U.S.C. §924(c), which once required “stacked” mandatory minimum sentences for multiple firearm counts charged in a single case.
Before 2018, a defendant convicted of two §924(c) counts in the same proceeding faced a mandatory minimum of 32 years, and three counts could yield 57 years or more. The First Step Act eliminated this stacking practice for first-time offenders, dramatically reducing sentences going forward. But Congress chose not to make the change retroactive.
This created a major disparity because individuals sentenced before 2018 remained in prison under dramatically longer terms than those sentenced afterward for the same conduct. Many courts began to treat that disparity as part of the “extraordinary and compelling” analysis, particularly when combined with rehabilitation and other individualized factors.
The federal courts of appeals split on whether this approach was permissible. Some circuits held that nonretroactive changes in sentencing law could not justify compassionate release. Others concluded that such disparities could be considered, especially when they produced grossly disproportionate outcomes.
The Sentencing Commission entered the debate in 2023. After regaining a quorum, it amended its policy statement to explicitly allow courts to consider “unusually long sentences” and changes in law that create significant disparities, provided certain conditions were met.
This marked a change in compassionate release as a tool for correcting systemic inequities. It suggested a future in which courts could revisit long sentences not only because of how the prisoner progressed in prison, but because of how the law itself had evolved.
That future has now been curtailed by the Supreme Court’s decision in Rutherford v. United States, decided in May 2026. The case addressed whether a non-retroactive change in sentencing law could qualify as an “extraordinary and compelling reason” for compassionate release. The Supreme Court answered that it cannot.
At the heart of the decision is a reaffirmation of congressional intent and the principle of non-retroactivity. The Court emphasized that when Congress reduces a statutory penalty but declines to apply that change retroactively, it is making a deliberate policy choice. Allowing courts to use that same change as a basis for sentence reduction through compassionate release would undermine that choice the Supreme Court ruled.
In the Court’s words, disparities created by non-retroactive amendments are not “extraordinary,” but rather a routine feature of legislative reform. Nor are they “compelling,” because they reflect Congress’s intentional decision to leave existing sentences in place.
This reasoning effectively closes the door on using compassionate release to address sentencing disparities arising from changes in law. Even when those disparities are dramatic, and even when they are combined with other favorable factors, they cannot satisfy the statutory threshold for eligibility.
The Court’s decision does more than resolve a circuit split. It redefines the conceptual boundaries of compassionate release by returning the doctrine to its traditional focus on individual circumstances.
Historically, compassionate release has been grounded in factors such as medical condition, age, and family hardship. The Court explicitly invoked this history, describing the “heartland” of compassionate release as tied to a prisoner’s personal situation rather than the evolution of sentencing law.
Under the Court’s framework, compassionate release is not a vehicle for correcting perceived injustices in sentencing policy. It is a limited exception reserved for extraordinary changes in a prisoner’s life, not for changes in the law that apply to others.
The decision also reinforces a two-step structure. Before a court can consider factors such as rehabilitation or sentencing disparity under the familiar §3553(a) framework, the defendant must first establish eligibility by showing “extraordinary and compelling” reasons.
Perhaps most significantly, the Court rejected the Sentencing Commission’s attempt to expand compassionate release through its 2023 policy statement. While acknowledging the Commission’s authority to interpret the statute, the Court made clear that such interpretations must remain consistent with congressional intent.
To the extent the Commission’s guidance allowed courts to consider nonretroactive changes in law as part of the “extraordinary and compelling” analysis, the Court found it invalid.
The Court signaled that even expert agencies like the Sentencing Commission cannot redefine statutory boundaries in ways that conflict with the structure and purpose of the underlying law.
For practitioners, this means that the Commission’s policy statements, while still important, are no longer a reliable avenue for expanding compassionate release beyond what the Court views as the statute’s core meaning.
The immediate impact of Rutherford falls most heavily on individuals serving lengthy sentences imposed under prior laws. For many of these prisoners, compassionate release had emerged as one of the few viable mechanisms for relief. DC Superior Court cases afford those with long sentences an opportunity to have their sentences reduced through the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act (IRAA). However, that is limited to those who committed offenses at an age younger than 25 years old and their crime was adjudicated in DC Superior Court. So this is not available to other federal inmates from who were prosecuted in other districts.
That pathway is now largely foreclosed. Defendants can no longer rely on the fact that they would receive a significantly shorter sentence if sentenced today with newer, more lenient laws. Even when combined with strong evidence of rehabilitation, family support, and exemplary conduct, that disparity cannot establish eligibility for compassionate release.
This does not mean that compassionate release is unavailable. Courts may still grant relief based on serious medical conditions, advanced age, or compelling family circumstances. But the doctrine’s reach has been narrowed, and its function has been clarified.
At its core, the Supreme Court’s decision reflects a broader commitment to finality in criminal sentencing. The Court emphasized that Congress has the authority to define crimes and set punishments, and that courts must respect the lines Congress draws, including decisions about retroactivity.
This emphasis on finality is not new, but it carries particular weight in the context of compassionate release. By limiting the grounds for eligibility, the Court has reinforced the idea that sentence modification is the exception, not the rule.
For advocates and policymakers, the decision raises difficult questions about how to address the lingering effects of outdated sentencing laws. If compassionate release cannot serve that function, the responsibility shifts back to Congress.
Whether through retroactive legislation, clemency, or other mechanisms, the challenge remains the same, which is how to reconcile past sentences with present standards of justice.
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