The US Supreme Court started its Fall 2023 term this Monday with a case probing into the federal sentencing laws. This case, Pulsifer v. United States, looks at whether a nonviolent drug offender can receive a sentence below the mandatory minimum for their offense if they do not meet all three disqualifying conditions in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1).
For the counsel representing Pulsifer, the interpretation of the statute hinged heavily on the use of the conjunction “and”. They argued that to qualify for a sentence below the mandatory minimum (also known as a “safety valve”), a defendant must not have: (a) more than four criminal history points (b) a prior three-point offense and (c) a prior two-point violent offense. They pointed to instances where Congress used “and” to connect other portions of the statute as well as other instances where the Congress used “or” as an allegedly intentional disjunctive term.
The legal team further highlighted the high stakes of this case. They emphasized that thousands of defendants potentially stand to avoid severe sentences for relatively minor drug offenses. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, 45 percent of individuals in federal prisons are there due to drug offenses, contributing, in part, to the problem of mass incarceration in the United States.
The United States, however, maintains that the term “and” serves to join (a), (b), and (c), effectively distributing the clause “does not have”; citing examples from English grammar guides such as The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.
Prior to reaching the Supreme Court, this case was handled by the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which confirmed the district court’s decision by ruling in favor of the United States. According to their statement:
The practical effect of reading “and” in its distributive sense is that § 3553(f)(1) serves as an eligibility checklist for offenders who seek to avail themselves of the limitation on statutory minimums. The text distributes the introductory phrase “does not have” across each statutory condition… If a defendant does not meet all three conditions, then the defendant is not eligible to be sentenced under the sentencing guidelines without regard to the statutory minimum.
Other significant cases on the court’s docket this term are set to bring up issues such as firearm possession, racial gerrymandering, and blocking on social media, among others.