Yesterday, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Fernandez v. United States, No. 24-556 (May 27, 2025) (cert. granted), to decide “whether a combination of ‘extraordinary and compelling reasons’ that may warrant a discretionary sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(a) can include reasons that may also be alleged as grounds for vacatur of a sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.”
Following a jury trial in the Southern District of New York, Petitioner Joe Fernandez was convicted of conspiring to commit murder for hire and using a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence resulting in death. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment. After his direct appeal was affirmed and his first § 2255 motion denied, the Second Circuit authorized Fernandez to file a second 2255 motion to raise a claim his 924(c) conviction should be vacated in light of United States v. Davis, 588 U.S. 445 (2019), which the district court granted, vacating his life sentence under 924(c), but leaving undisturbed his murder for hire life sentence.
In 2021, Fernandez filed a motion for reduction of sentence under 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(1)(A) (commonly referred to as compassionate release), asserting that “extraordinary and compelling reasons” supported a sentence reduction, i.e., his possible innocence and the much lower sentences received by his co-defendants who plead guilty instead of going to trial. The district court granted Fernandez’s compassionate release motion and reduced his sentence to time served of roughly 11 years, accepting his possible innocence and disparate sentences of his co-conspirators as “extraordinary and compelling circumstances that justify a lower sentence.”
On the government’s appeal, the Second Circuit reversed. With respect to the sentencing-disparity rationale, the court held that “under the circumstances of this case,” the difference between Fernandez’s sentence and his co-conspirators' was not an extraordinary and compelling reason to reduce his sentence. Further, the court held that possible-innocence is not properly raised in a motion for compassionate release. Rather, the court explained that because challenges to the validity of a conviction must be brought under § 2255, they cannot qualify as extraordinary and compelling reasons under § 3582(c)(1)(A).
Certiorari stage filings are available on the Supreme Court's docket here.