Friday night certs: SCOTUS grants review on "changes in the law" as basis for § 3582(c)(1)(A) sentence reduction

As noted in this prior post, the Supreme Court altered its recent patterns by issuing this order list late today.  And the order list had a whole lot for sentencing fans, with two of three Friday cert grants involving notable and long-simmering sentencing issues.  In addition to a grant in a capital case involving the application of Atkins (basics here), the Justices granted cert on two cases, which were consolidated for oral argument, to address the long-running dispute in the circuit courts concerning whether "changes in the law" can serve as a basis for a sentencing reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A).   

Only ten days ago, as discussed in this post, the Supreme Court granted cert in Fernandez v. US, to address "whether a combination of 'extraordinary and compelling reasons' that may warrant a discretionary sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) can include reasons that may also be alleged as grounds for vacatur of a sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255."  Now, through the cosolidated cases of Rutherford v. US and Carter v. US, the Justices will decide the related but distinct question of whether federal courts can consider "changes in the law" that do not apply retroactively as “extraordinary and compelling reasons” warranting a sentence reduction under § 3582(c)(1)(A). 

Whenever the Supreme Court gets around to scheduling its oral arguments for the fall, I would expect the Justice to hear both Fernandez and Rutherford/Carter on the same day.  Though there are some possible nuanced differences in the statutory interpretation issues in these cases, the Supreme Court's basic view of how § 3582(c)(1)(A)' provides sentence reduction authority will be at the heart of both cases.  (As regular readers likely know, I think these cases ought to be fairly easy for any jurist truly committed to textualist statutory interpretation.  But these matter would not make the Supreme Court's docket if all jurists found these matter easy.)