Members of Congress submit amicus brief urging Ninth Circuit to rule FIRST STEP Act provisions lowering mandatory minimums apply at a resentencing

In this post way back in 2018 just a few days after the FIRST STEP Act became law, I took note of the notable provisions in the Act which expressly addressed just which types of offenders should get the benefit of the Act’s new statutory sentencing provisions if their cases were already in the criminal justice pipeline.  In that post, I complimented Congress for addressing these issues, but I also noted that some matters left unclear such as whether “a defendant already sentenced earlier in 2018 [who has] his sentence reversed on some other ground and now he faces resentencing [could] get the benefit of any new provisions of the FIRST STEP Act upon resentencing.”

Via this new press release, I now see that this resentencing question is before the Ninth Circuit and that a notable group of Senators are seeking to ensure the defendant gets the benefit of the FIRST STEP Act at his resentencing.  Here is the text of the press release:

U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ), lead authors and sponsors of the First Step Act — landmark criminal justice reform legislation — today submitted a bipartisan Amicus Brief to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States of America v Alan L. Mapuatuli, a case related to the reduction of the second strike and third strike drug mandatory minimums.

The bipartisan Brief argues that Congress intended the First Step Act (FSA) to apply at post-FSA sentencing hearings, including when a defendant is before a court for sentencing after his or her initial sentence was vacated on appeal.  Congress intended to cover these cases by stating that the FSA applies “if a sentence for the offense has not been imposed” as of the FSA’s date of enactment.  However, the Justice Department is litigating the contrary position in United States of America v Alan L. Mapuatuli.

The Members wrote: “… the interpretation advanced by the Executive Branch and adopted by the district court in this case is contrary to Congress’s language and intent.  Reduced to its simplest form, that interpretation assumes that Congress intended to give legal effect to sentences that otherwise are void.  That assumption finds no support in the statutory text, contradicts the fundamental considerations that motivated Congress to enact the First Step Act, and produces inequitable outcomes that undermine the fairness and legitimacy of our criminal justice system.  That unquestionably is not what Congress intended.  For these reasons, amici respectfully submit that the district court’s judgment should be vacated and the case remanded for resentencing in conformity with the First Step Act.”

The full 20-page amicus brief in this matter is available at this link, and I applaud the Senators and their lawyers for urging the Ninth Circuit to ensure that the FIRST STEP Act is given the broad reach that it seems Congress intended and that its text reasonably supports.