Locked In: The Supreme Court Just Slammed the Door on Compassionate Release

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Locked In: The Supreme Court Just Slammed the Door on Compassionate Release

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On May 28, 2026, the Supreme Court issued two back-to-back decisions, Rutherford v. United States and Fernandez v. United States, that fundamentally narrow the grounds on which federal prisoners can seek compassionate release, the mechanism created by the bipartisan First Step Act of 2018 to allow early release for extraordinary and compelling circumstances. The Court ruled that prisoners cannot use compassionate release to argue they were sentenced under laws Congress has since made more lenient, nor can they use it to claim actual innocence, closing off two of the most significant pathways advocates had fought to establish. This episode breaks down what these rulings actually mean, who gets hurt, and why the fight over who controls the exits from federal prison is one of the most consequential and underreported battles in American criminal justice.

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