By admin 
Does the inaccuracy or unfairness of an underlying conviction count as an “extraordinary and compelling reason” for compassionate release? The U.S. Supreme Court considered this question in Thursday’s ruling in and decided 8–1 that it does not. This case is unusual because innocent prisoners typically petition for federal habeas corpus relief, not compassionate release. Federal habeas corpus petitions attack the conviction and open up the possibility of compensation if the petitioner can demonstrate their innocence. So, why would an innocent prisoner seek compassionate release? Because Congress and the Supreme Court have severely limited prisoners’ access to federal habeas corpus relief over the past several decades.
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Through our research interviewing exonerees about their appeals process and their perceptions of the courts and the law, we learned just how difficult it is for falsely convicted prisoners to get relief through habeas corpus—especially when they are petitioning pro se(representing themselves). Our 36 study participants are among the 3,820 people recognized by the National Registry of Exonerations as having their false convictions overturned based on actual innocence. Like Joe Fernandez, these exonerees learned the hard way that the appellate system is not designed for them.
Study participants told us that they initially had faith that the error of their convictions would quickly be corrected. Little did they know that postconviction petitions like habeas corpus are considered “collateral,” that filing deadlines and procedural rules could bar judges from ever hearing their arguments, and that if they filed for habeas review and failed, they might never get another chance. In response to these limitations, defendants like Fernandez have sought out other pathways for relief.
Fernandez was charged in 2013 of participating in a murder-for-hire conspiracy. Because he maintained his innocence and went to trial, he received a sentence disproportionate to his co-defendants, who pleaded guilty and acted as cooperating witnesses. The witness most instrumental to Fernandez’s conviction also admitted at trial to a history of lying in court. Nevertheless, Fernandez was convicted and received a mandatory life sentence. The district court judge had no discretion to impose a lesser sentence, though he maintained misgivings about the prosecution’s evidence. Fernandez appealed and lost, filed a federal habeas petition and was denied, and then finally moved to reduce his sentence under compassionate release. He may now spend the rest of his life in prison.
Fernandez argued that the weak evidence of his guilt constituted one of the “extraordinary and compelling reasons” that merits compassionate release under the First Step Act. Now the Supreme Court has ruled that compassionate release is not the appropriate tool for challenging the conviction and that defendants like Fernandez “must proceed” through habeas corpus instead. The case therefore demands a closer look at both compassionate release and federal habeas corpus. The broad language of the federal compassionate release statute allows for prisoners to file for relief from a lengthy sentence so long as rehabilitation alone does not provide the justification.
As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued in her lone dissent, the statute does not expressly prohibit considering actual innocence, or other legal and factual errors: “An innocent man stuck in prison for life: Can there be a more ‘extraordinary and compelling’ reason to shorten a prison sentence than that? … To the contrary, this manifest injustice would seem to be the quintessential situation in which the compassionate release safety valve would apply.” Still, the Supreme Court majority fears that prisoners might use compassionate release to “evade the rigorous requirements of postconviction relief.”
These requirements are more than rigorous; they are nearly insurmountable. When Congress passed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in 1996, it imposed strict filing deadlines, strengthened rules against multiple petitions, and expanded deference to state court decisions. These many rules and restrictions block falsely convicted state prisoners from receiving relief—not only those sentenced to death or convicted on terrorism charges. They also make it exceedingly difficult for pro se petitioners filing on their own behalf to strategize the best approach and avoid being procedurally barred.
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Federal habeas review provides one of the few ways for prisoners to overturn their convictions. If federal habeas review is functioning properly, prisoners with innocence claims should prefer it over compassionate release; the latter reduces the sentence, but keeps the conviction intact. Yet, as the majority admits in their ruling, the court has never acknowledged that actual innocence alone is sufficient grounds for habeas review. Citing the 1993 case Herrera v. Collins, Justice Amy Coney Barrett writes, “We have never ruled that possibility out and do not do so now.”
In Herrera, the court argued that clemency was the appropriate avenue for freestanding innocence claims, despite the extreme arbitrariness of pardon decisions. Whichever avenue is under review, the court has argued that relief should be found elsewhere. Fernandez should not appeal to compassionate release but habeas corpus. But when petitioners with freestanding innocence claims request habeas review, they are told to try clemency instead. Far from abusing the courts with frivolous appeals, the exonerees we interviewed described being thwarted at every attempt due to appellate and postconviction processes that prioritize procedural regularity over the substance of their innocence claims.
The majority decision also imposes new requirements on compassionate release, which was designed to show mercy to prisoners and to provide a “safety valve” for unjust sentences. Justice Jackson provides a brief history of the compassionate release statute in her Fernandez dissent. It was enacted in 1984 and amended in 2018 based on concerns that the textual interpretation had been too narrow and that few prisoners were being granted relief.
Despite this recent expansion of the statute, the court seems intent on returning to a narrow interpretation. In a companion case also decided on Thursday, by a 6–3 vote along ideological lines, Rutherford v. United States denies compassionate release to prisoners who were sentenced under mandatory minimum requirements that were reduced by the First Step Act. Rutherford, who faced a 32-year mandatory minimum and was sentenced to 42.5 years, would have faced a mandatory minimum of 14 years today. Writing for the dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argues that the Rutherford majority “searches high and low for other statutory limits on what courts may consider when deciding compassionate-release motions.”
Once again, the conservative majority on the court assumes the worst of postconviction petitioners. Prisoners seeking freedom through compassionate release are not trying to evade postconviction rules, they’re trying to take advantage of an opportunity to address the unjust sentences and wrongful convictions of the tough-on-crime era. Thursday’s rulings further disadvantage the falsely convicted and artificially restrict compassionate release. Congress should revise the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and clarify the compassionate release statute.