News for June 19, 2026: New 2255 Paths, Appeal Waiver Limits, Gun Ban Challenges, and Sentencing Role Errors

This week’s newsletter covers several favorable federal court decisions and developments affecting sentencing, convictions, and post-conviction relief. As always, the goal is to keep readers informed about important legal rulings that may impact ongoing cases, appeals, and future challenges in federal court.

Hunter v. United States, 2026 U.S. LEXIS 2558 (U.S. June 18, 2026)

Miscarriage of Justice Can Override an Appeal Waiver

The Supreme Court held that an appeal waiver is not enforceable when enforcing it would result in a miscarriage of justice. Hunter had signed a plea agreement waiving his right to appeal, but he challenged a supervised release condition requiring him to take any mental-health medication prescribed by his treating physician. The Fifth Circuit dismissed the appeal because its rule allowed only narrow exceptions to appeal waivers, such as ineffective assistance of counsel or a sentence above the statutory maximum. The Supreme Court rejected that cramped approach. The Court explained that appeal waivers matter, but courts are not just contract enforcers. Because courts approve plea agreements and then decide whether to enforce appeal waivers, they have their own responsibility to protect the integrity of the judicial system. The miscarriage-of-justice exception is a high bar, not a way around every bad sentencing ruling. It applies only when the sentence contains an obvious, egregious error that would bring the judicial system into disrepute. Examples include a sentence above the statutory maximum, a sentence based on race or another unconstitutional factor, a constitutionally invalid supervised release condition, or a sentencing process that lacks basic civilized procedure. Ordinary guideline mistakes or routine sentencing disputes will not be enough. Because the Fifth Circuit never applied this standard, the Supreme Court vacated the dismissal and remanded for the court to decide whether enforcing Hunter’s appeal waiver would result in a miscarriage of justice.

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United States v. Hemani, 2026 U.S. LEXIS 2559 (U.S. June 18, 2026)

Supreme Court Questions Whether 922(g) Can Reach Simple Gun Possession

The Supreme Court held that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) was unconstitutional as applied to Hemani, who was prosecuted for possessing a firearm in his home because he admitted using marijuana every other day. The government did not claim he was addicted, dangerous, intoxicated while possessing the gun, or that he ever misused the firearm. Instead, it argued that regular marijuana use alone automatically stripped him of his Second Amendment rights. The Court rejected that theory because the government’s historical comparison to “habitual drunkard” laws did not fit. Those older laws generally targeted people whose intoxication made them incapacitated, unable to manage their affairs, or dangerous after some form of process. Section 922(g)(3), as used here, imposed an automatic gun ban on a regular marijuana user without any individualized showing of danger or incapacity.

But the bigger issue may be Justice Thomas’s concurrence, joined by Justice Jackson, questioning whether § 922(g) itself exceeds Congress’s Commerce Clause power. Thomas explained that courts usually uphold § 922(g) if the firearm crossed state lines at any point in the past, even if the defendant’s possession was purely local and had nothing to do with interstate commerce. He warned that this turns the Commerce Clause into a general federal police power over simple gun possession. That matters far beyond marijuana cases. If courts take this concurrence seriously, future challenges may argue that § 922(g) prosecutions are unconstitutional when the only federal connection is that the gun once moved in interstate commerce.

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Akel v. United States, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 17774 (11th Cir. June 18, 2026)

2255 Motion Was Not Second or Successive After New Amended Judgment

The Eleventh Circuit vacated the dismissal of Akel’s § 2255 motion because the district court wrongly treated it as an unauthorized second or successive motion. Akel had already filed an earlier § 2255 motion, but that motion led to relief: his sentences on two counts were unlawful, the court reduced those sentences, changed the judgment, and entered a new Amended Judgment. That mattered. A later § 2255 motion challenges the judgment that currently authorizes the prisoner’s custody, and when a new judgment intervenes, the next § 2255 motion is not second or successive simply because some claims could have been raised earlier. The district court’s mistake was using a claim-by-claim approach, separating “old” claims from “new” claims, instead of asking whether the motion challenged a new judgment. Because the Amended Judgment was the operative judgment keeping Akel in custody, the district court had jurisdiction to consider the motion. The dismissal was vacated and the case was remanded.

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In re Jones, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 17530 (6th Cir. June 16, 2026)

Rule 60(b) Motion Was Proper When It Challenged Defects in the Habeas Case

The Sixth Circuit held that the district court went too far by treating Jones’s entire Rule 60(b) motion as a second or successive habeas petition. A Rule 60(b) motion becomes successive when it raises new habeas claims, reargues the merits of old claims, or tries to add new evidence to claims already decided. But it remains a proper Rule 60(b) motion when it attacks a defect in the integrity of the federal habeas proceeding itself. Jones’s motion did both. Most of his 104-page filing reargued the merits of his original habeas claims, and the district court correctly treated those parts as successive. But Jones also argued that the district court was biased, failed to consider relevant facts, wrongly found one claim insufficiently pleaded, and wrongly held other claims procedurally defaulted. Those arguments attacked how the habeas case was handled, not the underlying conviction itself. That matters because Rule 60(b) can be used to challenge non-merits rulings that blocked habeas review, including procedural default rulings, statute-of-limitations rulings, or other procedural barriers. Because those parts of Jones’s motion properly challenged the integrity of the habeas proceeding, the Sixth Circuit vacated the transfer order in part and sent the case back for the district court to consider those Rule 60(b) arguments.

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United States v. Nivaldo da Conceição Level, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 17404 (1st Cir. June 16, 2026)

Court Must Use the Four-Part Guía-Sendeme Test for Mitigating Role

The First Circuit vacated Conceição Level’s sentence because the district court did not apply the proper mitigating role analysis required by United States v. Guía-Sendeme, 134 F.4th 611 (1st Cir. 2025). Under Guía-Sendeme, a sentencing court must follow four steps before denying or granting a mitigating role adjustment: first, identify the full universe of participants involved in the relevant criminal activity; second, place those participants on a culpability continuum; third, identify the average participant in the criminal scheme; and fourth, compare the defendant’s role to that average participant using the guideline factors. The district court erred at the first step by focusing mainly on Conceição Level and the other man on the plane, instead of the broader drug venture. The record showed other discernable participants, including organizers who planned the deal for months, a recruiter, people at the Venezuelan camps, drug owners, and armed FARC members guarding the operation. Those people had to be included in the comparison if they were part of the relevant criminal activity. A defendant’s role as a pilot or courier may be important, but importance is not the same as relative culpability. Because the district court failed to define the proper universe of participants before comparing culpability, the First Circuit remanded for resentencing under the full Guía-Sendeme framework.

NEWS: A recent NPR/Marshall Project investigation found that the BOP’s administrative remedy system almost never grants relief. In 2023, the BOP decided almost 40,000 grievances. About 45% were rejected, 29% were closed for other reasons, 24% were denied on the merits, and only 2% were granted — roughly 700 total grants. Three-quarters of all grievances were rejected for filing errors or otherwise closed before meaningful relief was granted. Medical grievances were even worse: fewer than 1% were granted in 2023. Over 24 years of filings, healthcare-related complaints were the third most common grievance category, behind housing and staff-related issues. The investigation was based on nearly 1 million federal prison grievance cases filed between January 2000 and late May 2024. By comparison, California granted roughly 15% of grievances and appeals in 2023, Georgia granted nearly 13%, and Texas resolved over 4% in the prisoner’s favor. The BOP was below 2%.

Source: Christie Thompson & Joseph Shapiro, “‘Rejected’: How federal prisons stonewall grievances and deny care for years,” NPR/The Marshall Project, June 17, 2026.

Download the free guide, Insider’s Guide to Using Habeas Corpus to Get Out of Prison, for a practical overview of how habeas corpus works and why many post-conviction filings fail.

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