Debate over FIRST STEP Act safety value expansion — and whether "and" means "or" — now scheduled for first SCOTUS argument for OT23

I have noted in prior posts my excitement for the fascinating little sentencing case on the Supreme Court docket for next Term.  As flagged here, the Justices in February granted cert in Pulsifer v. United States, which raises the statutory issue of whether the word "and" as used in the FIRST STEP Act's expansion of the mandatory-minimum safety valve actually means "and" or might instead mean "or."  As I have noted before, federal criminal justice practitioners and sentencing fans should follow Pulsifer closely because its resolution will impact how thousands of drug defendants are sentenced in federal courts every year; statutory construction gurus should be interested in how Pulsifer addresses issues related to textualism, plain meaning and the rule of lenity.  

Now adding to my excitement is the recent release of the Supreme Court's first arguments calendar for October Term 2023.  The Justices have scheduled six arguments for the first two weeks of October, and Pulsifer is the very first of the bunch scheduled for Monday, October 2.  Being the first argument of a new SCOTUS Term seems likely to generate a little more attention for this little sentencing case, though surely there will still be a lot more focus on the case scheduled for argument on October 3 concerning the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

A few prior related posts:

• SCOTUS grants certiorari to review reach of FIRST STEP Act's expansion of statutory safety valve 
• Top-side SCOTUS briefs in Pulsifer address FIRST STEP Act's expansion of statutory safety valve