A Compassionate Release Win for Commutees – Update for January 6, 2026

We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

COMMUTATION DOESN’T NEGATE COMPASSIONATE RELEASE

In 2012, Jonathan Wright was sentenced to life imprisonment after a federal drug conviction. In 2024, he filed an 18 USC § 3582(c)(1) compassionate release motion based on First Step Act changes in 21 USC § 841(b)(1)(A)  mandatory minimum sentences.

The district court reduced Jon’s sentence to 420 months followed by 10 years of supervised release but never addressed Jon’s argument that his prior Arkansas convictions no longer qualified as predicate offenses for his sentence enhancement.

Jon appealed, arguing that the district court should have reduced his sentence even more. While the appeal was pending, President Joe Biden commuted Jon’s sentence to 330 months last January.

The government argued that Biden’s commutation should moot Jon’s appeal, and even if it didn’t, the Arkansas statute’s overly broad definition of controlled substance should nevertheless be read to be consistent with federal law.

Last week, the 8^th Circuit gave Jon a late stocking stuffer.

Although the Circuits are split on the question, the 8^th ruled that Biden’s commutation did not moot Jon’s compassionate release motion. The President’s power to commute criminal sentences derives from the Constitution – the Article II power to “grant Reprieves and Pardons.” “A commuted sentence,” the Circuit held, “does not become ‘an executive sentence in full’ but instead remains a judicial sentence – but one that the executive will only enforce to a limited extent.

As for Jon’s prior convictions under Arkansas § 5-64-401, the 8^th observed that the statute incorporated a state Dept of Health regulation that defined a “narcotic drug” to include all cocaine isomers, while federal felony drug offenses encompass only optical and geometric cocaine isomers. Circuit precedent holds that a state drug statute that criminalizes even “one additional isomer” of cocaine beyond what the federal statute proscribes cannot produce a predicate felony drug offense for federal sentencing purposes.

The Circuit ruled that the district court’s decision to not consider that Jon’s priors no longer counted under § 841(b)(1)(A) when ruling on his compassionate release motion “was based on an erroneous legal conclusion and accordingly was an abuse of discretion.” When resentencing Jon on remand, the 8^th directed, the “district court is required only to considerthat Jon ‘s prior convictions no longer qualify as predicate offenses for his sentence enhancement. The district court is not required to accept this point as a reason to further reduce Jon’s sentence.”

This opinion is significant, ruling in essence that at least in the 8^th Circuit, changes in the law creating gross disparities between the existing sentence and the sentence if imposed today have a substantial role in the compassionate release calculus.

United States v. Wright, Case No. 24-2057, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 33882 (8th Cir. December 30, 2025)

~ Thomas  L. Root