The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that defendants who were originally sentenced before the First Step Act of 2018 but later had their convictions or sentences vacated may seek the statute’s reduced mandatory minimums at resentencing. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the majority opinion in Hewitt v. United States, siding with Tony Hewitt and several co-defendants as well as the Justice Department, which supported a broader reading of the reform law. The decision clarifies that the First Step Act’s lenient penalties are not limited to defendants awaiting their first sentencing after the law’s enactment. Instead, the Court held that once a prior sentence is set aside, the resentencing is governed by the legal landscape in effect on that date, including the Act’s lower minimum terms. Thursday’s ruling expands the pool of federal inmates who can benefit from the 2018 bipartisan criminal-justice overhaul, potentially reducing sentences for individuals whose original punishments were overturned on appeal or through collateral review. The dissent argued that Congress intended the relief only for defendants not yet sentenced when the Act took effect.