Hewitt v. United States

In this case, the court considered this issue: Does the First Step Act’s sentencing reduction provision apply to a defendant whose original sentence was imposed before the Act’s enactment, but was later vacated and resentenced after the Act took effect?

The case was decided on June 26, 2025.

The Supreme Court held that because a sentence “has...been imposed” for purposes of § 403(b) of the First Step Act only if the sentence is extant (i.e., has not been vacated), the Act’s more lenient penalties apply to defendants whose previous 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) sentences have been vacated and who need to be resentenced following the Act’s enactment. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson authored the 5-4 majority opinion of the Court.

When Congress employs the present-perfect tense (“has been imposed”), it addresses whether something has continuing relevance to the present, not merely whether it occurred as a historical fact. The present-perfect tense can refer to either “an act, state, or condition that is now completed” or “a past action that comes up to and touches the present,” but in both senses it conveys that the event in question continues to be true or valid. A sentence has been imposed for § 403(b) purposes only if it remains extant—that is, has not been vacated. This interpretation aligns with background legal principles that vacated court orders are void ab initio and lack prospective legal effect.

Background principles confirm this interpretation. When interpreting statutes, courts recognize that Congress legislates against certain unexpressed presumptions, including that vacated court orders are treated as though they never occurred. Just as defendants with vacated prior felony convictions are not precluded from possessing weapons under the federal felon-in-possession ban, § 403(b) retroactivity does not exclude those whose prior sentences have been vacated. The statute’s use of present-perfect rather than past-perfect tense, especially when adjacent provisions use simple past tense, reinforces that only past sentences with continued validity preclude application of the Act’s new penalties.

Justice Samuel Alito authored a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, arguing that the present-perfect tense in §403(b) refers to the historical fact of whether a sentence had been imposed as of the Act’s enactment date, regardless of subsequent vacatur.

The opinion is presented here in its entirety, but with citations omitted. If you appreciate this episode, please subscribe. Thank you.