Document Type

Amicus Brief

Publication Date

9-8-2026

Case Name

Akeem Asad v. United States of America

Abstract

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT: The Sentencing Guidelines are, in practice, the most consequential legal text in federal criminal law. Yet this Court has abstained from interpreting the Guidelines for decades. That practice is anomalous in the federal judiciary and should end. District courts must correctly calculate every defendant’s guideline range at every sentencing hearing. Courts of Appeals routinely hear appeals asserting guideline mistakes. And differences of appellate opinion over purely legal, highly consequential questions often arise. This Court apparently declines to hear such cases because the Sentencing Commission could resolve those conflicts. See Braxton v. United States,500 U.S. 344, 347–48 (1991).

That rationale is anomalous because it applies to every non-constitutional conflict this Court encounters. Congress can (and does) resolve conflicts over the meaning of federal statutes. Agencies can (and do) resolve conflicts over the meaning of federal regulations. Rules Committees can (and do) resolve conflicts over the meaning of Federal Rules. Yet this Court weighs in from time to time on each of these legal sources to declare what the law is.

Shared accountability and control over the meaning and content of federal law is a feature, not a bug, of our legal system. There is always another entity that could step in to determine what nonconstitutional law means. But in our constitutional order, this Court has the solemn duty to fix the law’s meaning—at least until the proactive branches unfix, or refix, it. That duty is no less implicated by the hallmark of modern federal sentencing: the imperfect algorithm that is the Sentencing Guidelines. Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 390 (1989).

Amici argue that this Court should evaluate petitions seeking review of circuit-splitting Guidelines issues under the ordinary criteria for granting certiorari. See S. Ct. R. 10(a). There is no coherent doctrinal, precedential, or theoretical basis for treating the Sentencing Guidelines differently than other important sources of federal law. Unlike Congress, Agencies, and Rules Committees, the Sentencing Commission is often rendered inoperable by being denied a quorum. Braxton does not demand a contrary rule and should not be understood broadly to preclude review of circuit conflicts over the Sentencing Guidelines.

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