In a recent ruling of critical importance to U.S criminal justice, the Supreme Court resolved an ambiguity in the provisions of the First Step Act of 2018 linked to federal sentencing. Justice Elena Kagan, delivering the opinion for a sharply divided Supreme Court in the case Pulsifer v. United States, came down firmly on the side of government interpretation.
The crux of the issue revolved around the interpretation of the “safety valve” within federal criminal sentencing laws. Designed to provide a respite from the otherwise mandatory, and often extensive, minimum sentences, the safety valve imposes five specific rules that defendants must satisfy.
Central to the Pulsifer v. United States dispute was the first of these provisions, centered around the assessment of a defendant’s criminal history. Originally, the regulation excluded any defendant with more than one point in their criminal history record. This was altered by the First Step Act in 2018, which instituted a tripartite evaluation system, loosely termed as the ‘4-point’, ‘3-point’, and ‘2-point’ offences.
The ensuing divergence of opinion pertained to the reading of the conjunctive term “and” in the bifurcation between sub-paragraphs B and C. While the federal government saw the new regulation as a checklist of three distinct conditions, defendants maintained that the phrase established a unified condition for relief, leading to the loss of the safety valve only when a defendant acquires all three designations. Justice Kagan ultimately endorsed the latter view, thereby constricting the application of the safety valve.
Future citation of the lengthy opinion is expected to centre around the interpretation of “and” and “or” within statutory structures. Justice Kagan outlined that the only way to determine the connotation of “and” was by analyzing the context of the statute, citing various examples including a comparison to Article III of the Constitution.
Kagan’s allegiance to the government’s argument essentially hinged on a superfluity problem. The defendant’s interpretation would render the first of the three test conditions (subparagraph A) virtually without “any operative significance.” Thus, according to the government’s viewpoint, each of the three subparagraphs independently contributes to justifying the denial of the safety valve. Conversely, in Pulsifer’s interpretation, subparagraph A would become redundant. Kagan ultimately aligned with the former view, narrowing down the application of the safety valve to defendants who meet each of the three sub-conditions.
This judgment resolves a previously present discord among lower courts and is also likely to result in more frequent deployment of mandatory minimum sentencing provisions. Whether Congress decides to further liberalize these provisions in response remains to be seen. Further details can be read on the full judgement here.