U.S. Supreme Court Takes Up Supervised Release Revocation Case

The United States Supreme Court issued an orders list this morning, taking up one criminal case. In Esteras v. United States, No. 23-7483, the high court will ponder what factors a federal district court may consider when deciding whether to revoke the supervised release of a federal convict. It is, once again, a question of interpretation of federal criminal statutes which will have little, if any, impact on the state courts that handle most criminal cases in this country.

Missing from today’s orders list is the Alabama capital case of Hamm v. Smith, No. 23-167, which has been on the Court’s conference list 24 times without a decision on whether to take it up. That case involves the categorical exclusion from capital punishment of persons who can be diagnosed with intellectual disability, formerly mental retardation. Since the Court grafted that limitation onto the Eighth Amendment 22 years ago, it has become mired in details of definition and measurement.

The Supreme Court’s next conference is Friday, November 1.