We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

SUPREME COURT GRANTS CERT ON THREE FEDERAL CRIMINAL CASES

The Supreme Court last week added three federal criminal questions to its docket.

In Terry v. United States, the justices agreed to hear a technical sentencing issue with significant implications for thousands of inmates: whether defendants who were sentenced for low-level crack-cocaine offenses under 21 USC § 841(b)(1)(C) before Congress enacted the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 are eligible for resentencing under the First Step Act of 2018.

Lower courts are divided on this question; as a result, one party argued, Supreme Court review is necessary “to prevent thousands of predominately Black defendants from being forced to spend years longer in prison than identically situated defendants” elsewhere in the country “and to ensure that Congress’s goal of alleviating the racial disparities in sentencing caused by the 1986 law’s harsh sentencing regime is realized.”

In Greer v. United States, the Court will consider whether, when applying plain-error review based on an intervening decision of the Supreme Court, a court of appeals can look at matters outside the trial record to determine whether the error affected a defendant’s substantial rights or affected the trial’s fairness, integrity or public reputation.

Finally, one that everyone expected: the Court granted the government certiorari in United States v. Gary, to determine whether the 4th Circuit is right that a Rehaif v. United States error is structural, meaning that a defendant does not have to prove that he or she was prejudiced by the court’s failure to instruct on all elements of the 18 USC § 922(g) felon-in-possession offense.

Terry v. United States, Case No 20-5904 (certiorari granted January 8, 2021)

Greer v. United States, Case No 19-8709 (certiorari granted January 8, 2021)

United States v. Gary, Case No 20-444 (certiorari granted January 8, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root