When federal prisoners ask courts to revisit old convictions, the first question is not just who is right, but which statute they are allowed to use. A recent Supreme Court ruling draws a sharper line between habeas and compassionate release, especially as expanded by the First Step Act. And it is a line that will matter in every future bid to reopen a long‑final conviction.
Habeas and Rule 60(b)
For people in federal or state prison who have already lost their direct appeals, the main way to keep challenging a conviction in federal court is through habeas corpus statutes: §2254 for state prisoners and §2255 for federal prisoners. A habeas petition is a civil case in which the prisoner argues that the conviction or sentence violated the Constitution or federal law and asks the federal court to vacate or correct that judgment.
Because Congress wanted finality, it put strict limits on these collateral attacks: there is usually a one-year filing deadline, prisoners generally get only one full shot at habeas, and any second or successive petition must fit within very narrow statutory exceptions and be pre‑approved by a court of appeals.
Once a habeas case is over and judgment is entered, it is still a civil judgment, so the ordinary civil rules about reopening judgments can come into play. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) allows a court to relieve a party from a final judgment for specified reasons and, in its catch‑all provision, for “any other reason that justifies relief.” Even then, the motion has to be filed within a reasonable time and is supposed to be reserved for truly extraordinary circumstances.
The Supreme Court has made clear that Rule 60(b) cannot be used as an end‑run around the habeas limits. If a Rule 60(b) motion in substance presents a new claim or attacks the court’s decision on the merits of the conviction, it is treated as a second or successive habeas petition. If it instead targets a procedural defect in the prior habeas proceeding (like a pure statute‑of‑limitations error) it can be treated as a true Rule 60(b) motion and decided under the usual, demanding standards for reopening a civil judgment.
Fernandez’s Path to Seeking Compassionate Release
The recent case of Fernandez v. United States asks whether a prisoner can use the compassionate‑release statute to attack his conviction instead of going through habeas or Rule 60(b). That question arises in the post‑First Step Act world, where prisoners, for the first time, may file their own compassionate‑release motions rather than waiting on the Bureau of Prisons.
In 2013, Joe Fernandez was accused of being the backup gunman in the planned assassination of two gang members in New York. According to the federal indictment, a drug ring paid him $40,000 to be on standby in case the primary shooter’s weapon malfunctioned. When that gun jammed, Fernandez allegedly stepped in, fired 14 shots, and killed both victims.
At trial, the key witness against him was his cousin, Patrick Darge, who was also an alleged co‑conspirator; Fernandez’s defense tried to convince the jury that Darge was actually protecting his own brother as the real second shooter and framing Fernandez instead, but the jury did not accept that theory and convicted Fernandez of murder for hire and a related firearms offense. The judge gave him two consecutive life sentences.
After that, Fernandez spent years challenging his convictions.
Challenging the Verdict
He first argued that prosecutors had violated Brady v. Maryland by not disclosing that another alleged co‑conspirator, Luis Rivera, had supposedly denied driving the getaway car. But after reviewing the Government’s interview notes, the judge found nothing he considered relevant, even as he said he was troubled that prosecutors let Rivera plead to a lesser drug charge and drop the murder and gun counts.
The Second Circuit affirmed, concluding that the Rivera notes did not say what Fernandez claimed and that a reasonable jury could credit Darge’s testimony. Fernandez then filed two post-conviction motions under §2255. The first was an actual innocence and credibility challenge and was dismissed as plainly meritless. The second vacated only the firearms count under Davis, leaving the murder‑for‑hire life sentence in place. In that later order, the district judge noted that if the murder‑for‑hire life term were ever commuted or held unlawful, Fernandez would be released immediately.
Picking up on the judge’s doubts, Fernandez next tried a different route: he filed a compassionate‑release motion under 18 U.S.C. §3582(c)(1)(A), arguing that “extraordinary and compelling reasons” — chiefly his asserted innocence — justified cutting his sentence. He attacked Darge’s credibility and relied on Rivera’s later statement about the getaway car, arguing that the Government’s favorable plea deal for Rivera and nondisclosure of its notes undermined the verdict.
Nearly ten years after the trial, the district judge granted compassionate release, saying he felt disquiet about whether Darge had told the truth, had strong concerns about the Government’s charging decisions, and doubted that the jury’s verdict was correct, suggesting that Fernandez might not have been the shooter or even part of the conspiracy. The Second Circuit reversed, holding that a prisoner cannot use the compassionate‑release statute to attack the validity of a conviction.
Proceedings at the Supreme Court
After the Second Circuit’s decision, Fernandez sought review in the Supreme Court. The Court granted certiorari in 2025 to resolve a split among the courts of appeals over whether prisoners may invoke §3582(c)(1)(A)’s “extraordinary and compelling reasons” to attack the validity of their convictions rather than their sentences. The case was argued on November 12, 2025, and the Court issued its decision on May 28, 2026.
Justice Barrett wrote the majority opinion, joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh. Justices Sotomayor and Kagan concurred in the judgment, while Justice Jackson dissented. The majority framed the question as whether doubts about the lawfulness of a conviction can count as “extraordinary and compelling reasons” under §3582(c)(1)(A), or whether such challenges must proceed, if at all, under the habeas statute, 28 U.S.C. §2255. The Court held that a prisoner who wants to collaterally attack the validity of his conviction must use §2255, not §3582, and that the supposed invalidity of a conviction is not the kind of “extraordinary and compelling” circumstance Congress had in mind when it created compassionate release.
In reaching that conclusion, the majority emphasized Congress’s procedural limits on §2255 — such as the one‑year limitations period, the general rule against multiple collateral attacks, and the bar on relitigating claims already rejected on direct review — and contrasted them with the more open‑ended structure of §3582(c)(1)(A) after the First Step Act, which broadened access to compassionate‑release motions by letting prisoners file them directly. It also relied on earlier decisions like Preiser v. Rodriguez and Gonzalez v. Crosby, which warned against using other procedural devices to circumvent the specific postconviction schemes Congress designed. Applying that logic, the Court concluded that Fernandez’s compassionate‑release motion, which questioned the correctness of the jury’s verdict and the reliability of the trial evidence, was in substance a collateral attack on his conviction and therefore had to be pursued, if at all, through §2255 rather than through compassionate release.
What the Ruling Changes Going Forward
The ruling leaves little doubt about the ground rules going forward: prisoners who want to relitigate whether they should have been convicted in the first place must do so through habeas, not by repackaging those arguments as “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for compassionate release. In practical terms, the decision cabins the First Step Act’s expansion of compassionate release to its core role: mercy based on changed circumstances.
