Before the First Step Act, defendants charged with multiple counts of violating 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) could receive multiple 25-year mandatory minimum sentences for each count consecutive to the 5-year mandatory minimum sentence for conviction on the first count, a practice known as “stacking.”
Under the former regime, petitioners Hewitt, Duffey, and Ross were convicted under § 924(c) and each received consecutive sentences exceeding 325 years. Petitioners successfully challenged some of their convictions on direct appeal and later under United States v. Davis, 588 U. S. 445, 470 (2019), which held that the residual clause under § 924(c) defining a “crime of violence” was unconstitutionally vague.
During their post-Davis re-sentencing proceedings, Petitioners argued that the First Step Act’s 5-year—not 25-year—mandatory minimum penalties applied because a vacated prior sentence is not a sentence that “has . . . been imposed” for purposes of § 403(b). The district court disagreed, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that § 403(b) applies only to defendants whose sentences had not yet been imposed as of the Act’s effective date. This caused a circuit split.
The Supreme Court reversed, resolving the circuit split. The court held that, for purposes of §403(b), a sentence “has not been imposed” if that sentence was vacated after Congress enacted the First Step Act. The Court relied on the use of present-perfect tense in § 403(b) and background vacatur principles, under which courts treat a vacated conviction as no conviction at all. If a vacated sentence has no continuing legal effect, the Court reasoned, then the First Step Act’s lower mandatory minimums apply at re-sentencing proceedings
Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Gorsuch did not join Parts IV and V, which discuss the context and enactment history of the First Step Act and § 403(b). In dissent, Justice Alito argued that § 403(b) applies retroactively only if the defendant had a pending case in which sentencing had not yet occurred when Congress passed the First Step Act in 2018.
Certiorari to the Fifth Circuit
Opinion by Jackson with Roberts, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch joining Parts I–III; Sotomayor and Kagan joining Parts IV–V
Dissenting opinion by Alito, joined by Thomas, Kavanaugh, Barrett
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