Several years ago, Congress enacted legislation to set mandatory minimum sentences for certain federal drug crimes. As time moved on, many Congressmen began to believe that some of the statutory minimums were too harsh in some individual cases. They and others began drafting legislation to allow judges to impose sentences below the statutory minimums in certain cases. Eventually, Congress enacted 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f), which set out five categories of cases in which the sentencing judge could issue a sentence below the statutorily required “minimum.” The first of those categories, at Section 3553(f)(1), set out three sub-categories of cases in which the convict would not qualify for a sentence below the “statutory minimum.” The three sub-categories were grouped within a series of three distinctive characteristics of the convict’s past criminal record, separated solely by the word “and.”
In Pulsifer v. United States, decided on March 15, 2024, the Court ruled 6-3 that Section 3553(f)(1) disqualified convicts from “minimum sentence” relief if their record contained any one of the three distinctive characteristics described therein. The six Justices in the majority were Justices Kagen, Barrett, Kavanaugh, Alito, Thomas, and Chief Justice Roberts. Justices Gorsuch, Sotomayor, and Jackson dissented.
COMMENT: The Court, through its majority, erroneously construed the word “and” in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1) to mean the word “or.” In the context of that statutory provision, the word “and” expresses the intention of Congress to connect three different facts to work in combination with each other to limit the number of factors that will disqualify small time drug criminals from relief against “minimum” but unduly harsh sentences for their crimes.[1] In cases of federal statutory construction, the apparent intent of Congress should always be the controlling factor.
Dan Rhea
[1] Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “and (conj.1), sense I.i.2,” March 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/7197307458.
RECENT RULINGS 