In 2018, Congress decided that stacking gun charges to pile decades onto a single sentence was too harsh, and it stopped the practice. Both parties voted for it. But Congress only fixed it going forward. People already serving those stacked sentences got no relief, just because their case came first.
For years, judges closed that gap using compassionate release, freeing people whose sentences everyone agreed were far longer than anything they would get today. In May 2026, the Supreme Court shut that door. In Rutherford v. United States, a 6-3 majority ruled that a sentence Congress later decided was too long cannot count as an extraordinary and compelling reason for release.
Now about a dozen people who were already freed could be sent back. One of them is Anthony Bailey, a 61-year-old Indianapolis bus driver who served 27 years, came home in 2024, found steady work, and helps raise his young grandson. If prosecutors win, he does not get out again until he is nearly 86. Locking him back up does not make anyone safer. It just costs taxpayers more to imprison a grandfather who is already living a law-abiding life.
There is a clean fix. I am asking you to support and pass S.3482, the First Step Implementation Act of 2025. It makes the 2018 sentencing reforms retroactive, so people serving outdated stacked sentences can ask a judge for the same relief Congress already granted everyone sentenced after them.
Congress decided these sentences were unjust. The only question left is whether that decision applies to the people still serving them. Please pass the First Step Implementation Act and finish the job.
