Source: https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/nonmajority-opinions-biconditional-rules
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 04:00:53+00:00

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abstract. In Hughes v. United States, the Supreme Court will revisit a thorny question: how to determine the precedential effect of decisions with no majority opinion. For four decades, the clearest instruction from the Court has been the rule from Marks v. United States: the Court’s holding is “the position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds.” The Marks rule raises particular concerns, however, when it is applied to biconditional rules. Biconditionals are distinctive in that they set a standard that dictates both success and failure for a given issue. More formulaically, they combine an if-then proposition (If A, then B) with its inverse (If Not-A, then Not-B).
Appellate courts on both sides of the circuit split that prompted the grant of certiorari in Hughes have overlooked the special features of biconditional rules. If the Supreme Court makes the same mistake, it could adopt a misguided approach that would unjustifiably create binding law without a sufficient consensus among the Justices involved in the precedent-setting case. This Essay identifies these concerns and proposes ways to apply Marks coherently to nonmajority opinions that endorse biconditional rules.
Whichever path the Court takes, it will be crucial to appreciate the particular problems posed by biconditional rules. Biconditionals are distinctive rules in that they set a standard that dictates both success and failure for a given issue. More formulaically, biconditionals combine a conditional proposition (If A, then B) with its inverse (If Not-A, then Not-B).11 Because biconditionals are two rules rolled into one, they complicate the inquiry into which of two or more opinions provides the “narrowest grounds” under Marks.
Appellate courts on both sides of the circuit split that prompted the Court’s grant of certiorari in Hughes have misunderstood the nature of biconditional rules. Specifically, courts have assumed that Justice Sotomayor’s concurring opinion in Freeman would be binding under Marks if it would make a narrower universe of defendants eligible for a sentence reduction than Justice Kennedy’s Freeman plurality opinion would.12 But, as a matter of logic, this assumption is mistaken.
A key disagreement in the lower courts—and between the parties in Hughes—is whether the concurring opinion truly is narrower in the sense that it makes fewer defendants eligible for relief. The defendant in Hughes argues that the Freeman concurrence is not narrower; instead, he maintains that it makes some defendants eligible who would be ineligible under the plurality’s approach.13 The government contests this interpretation, arguing that any defendant who would be eligible under the concurrence’s approach would necessarily be eligible under the plurality’s approach, and thus that the Freeman concurrence is narrower.14 Due to some ambiguities in the Freeman plurality opinion, there is indeed some uncertainty on this point.
The dispute on this issue, however, misapprehends the nature of biconditionals. Even if the Freeman concurrence makes a narrower set of defendants eligible for a sentence reduction, it necessarily must make a broader set of defendants ineligible for a sentence reduction. Yet in Hughes, the government is invoking the part of the Freeman concurrence’s biconditional rule that dictates a defendant’s ineligibility. To say that the concurrence’s ineligibility rule is narrower than the plurality’s ineligibility rule turns the narrowest-grounds notion on its head.
Part I of this Essay describes the Freeman decision and the disagreements in the lower courts that led the Supreme Court to grant certiorari in Hughes. This Essay then discusses how to account for biconditional rules under various potential approaches to the Marks rule. Part II addresses the significance of biconditional rules under an approach to Marks that would inquire whether one opinion is a “logical subset” of another. In particular, it shows why one biconditional rule can never be a complete logical subset of a competing biconditional rule. Part III applies a similar analysis to an approach to Marks that would identify areas of “shared agreement” or “partial overlap” between opinions. Finally, Part IV considers an approach to Marks that would both address biconditional rules and incorporate the views of dissenting Justices. To apply the Marks rule coherently under any approach, the Court must pay particular attention to the special features of biconditionals.
This Part first summarizes the Supreme Court’s decision in Freeman. It then discusses the disagreements among circuit judges regarding how to apply the Freeman decision given the lack of a majority opinion.
After the defendant’s sentencing, the U.S. Sentencing Commission retroactively amended the Federal Sentencing Guidelines to reduce the disparity in penalties between crack- and powder-cocaine offenses.17 The defendant moved for a reduction in his sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2), which gives the district court discretion to reduce a sentence that was “based on a sentencing range that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing Commission . . . .”18 This raised a fundamental statutory question: when is a sentence imposed following an 11(c)(1)(C) agreement “based on” a particular Guidelines range?
In applying Marks to the fragmented Freeman decision, judges have disagreed on two issues. The first area of disagreement was the content of the rule that the Freeman plurality adopted. This is significant for purposes of the Marks rule, because to assess which opinion’s “grounds” are “narrowest,” one must identify what each opinion’s “grounds” actually are.
As described above, some lower courts have endorsed an approach to Marks that inquires whether one opinion is the logical subset of another. One of the key areas of disagreement between the defendant and the government in Hughes is whether the Freeman concurrence is a logical subset of the Freeman plurality.52 This Part defines the notion of a logical subset, and then turns to the particular challenges of applying a logical-subset approach to biconditional rules like those articulated in the competing Freeman opinions.
A. What Is a Logical Subset?
The Freeman concurrence’s rule can be described as (If C, then X), where C (for concurrence) defines the characteristics of cases in which a defendant is eligible to seek a sentence reduction, and X is the result that such a defendant is eligible. For the concurrence, C is the antecedent and X is the consequent.
To say that the concurrence’s rule is a logical subset of the plurality’s rule is to say that the concurrence’s antecedent (C) is a logical subset of the plurality’s antecedent (P).55 That is, the universe of cases that would be eligible for a sentence reduction under the plurality’s rule necessarily includes all of the cases that would be eligible for a sentence reduction under the concurrence’s rule. As discussed above, there is disagreement over whether this logical-subset relationship exists between the Freeman concurrence and plurality.56 It is clear, however, that the focus of this disagreement is on whether every case that satisfies the concurrence’s antecedent would necessarily satisfy the plurality’s antecedent. In other words, the disagreement is whether Justice Sotomayor’s rule would allow any defendants to seek sentence reductions whom the plurality’s rule would not; if so then the antecedent (C) of Justice Sotomayor’s rule (If C, then X)is not a logical subset of the antecedent (P) of the plurality’s rule (If P, then X).
If a defendant’s plea agreement does not clearly rely on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline, then the defendant is not eligible to seek a reduction (If Not-C, then Not-X).
These are distinct principles. Of course, it is not uncommon for a judicial opinion to endorse both a proposition and its inverse simultaneously. When a court does so, it articulates not only an if-then rule but an if-and-only-if rule. An if-and-only-if rule is called a biconditional rule precisely because it combines a conditional rule with its inverse.58 By using a biconditional, a court provides “a comprehensive resolution to the relevant question”59—a test that will determine both success (X) and failure (Not-X).60 We can think of the first rule (If C, then X) as the top half of the Freeman concurrence’s biconditional, and the second rule (If Not-C, then Not-X) as the bottom half of the biconditional.
To begin, imagine the following simple example: Charlie and Pam are co-workers. They propose different rules for deciding when they will go out to lunch and when they will eat at the office. They work a typical five-day work week. Charlie wants to go out to lunch only on Friday, and Pam wants to go out to lunch only on Thursday and Friday.
Focus first on the top half of each biconditional. Charlie’s top-half rule is: if it is Friday (C), then we will go out to lunch (X). Pam’s top-half rule is: If it is Thursday or Friday (P), then we will go out to lunch (X). For the top half of the biconditional, C is clearly a logical subset of P. Every time Charlie’s antecedent is satisfied (because it is Friday), Pam’s antecedent is necessarily satisfied.
For the bottom half of the biconditional, however, the opposite is true. Charlie’s bottom-half rule is: If it is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday (Not-C), then we will not go out to lunch (Not-X). Pam’s bottom-half rule is: If it is Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday (Not-P), then we will not go out to lunch (Not-X). As to the two bottom-half rules, Pam’s antecedent is the logical subset of Charlie’s. Every time Not-P is true (because it is Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday), Charlie’s bottom-half antecedent (Not-C) is necessarily satisfied.
This simple example confirms a crucial proposition: one biconditional can never be a logical subset of another biconditional. When the top-half antecedent of Charlie’s rule is a logical subset of the top-half antecedent of Pam’s rule, their roles are necessarily reversed as to their bottom-half antecedents.
This example also shows that it is possible to separate the biconditional into its component parts, and then to identify different logical subsets for the top half and the bottom half. Under a logical-subset approach, Charlie and Pam will go out to lunch on Friday and they will not go out to lunch on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. No logical subset exists with respect to Thursday.
Thus, we can only identify logical subsets that truly reflect consensus by looking at both halves of biconditional rules independently. If identifying areas of consensus is the goal, it would have been a mistake to look solely at the top-half of the biconditional. We would have found that Charlie’s rule is the logical subset because “Friday” is a logical subset of “Thursday or Friday,” and we therefore would have declared that they would not go to lunch on Thursday. The right thing to say about Thursday, however, is that no rule controls it.
As mentioned earlier, lower courts have disagreed about whether any logical-subset relationship exists between the Freeman concurrence and the Freeman plurality.64 Let us assume, however, that the Freeman plurality is read so that every time a defendant is eligible for a sentence reduction under the concurring opinion, he or she will necessarily be eligible under the plurality opinion.
In this example, C is a logical subset of P. If the plea agreement clearly relies on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline (C is true), then it is necessarily true that either the plea agreement clearly relies on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline or that guideline was otherwise relevant to the judge’s approval of the plea agreement (P is true). The universe of cases where the plurality’s antecedent (P) is satisfied completely encompasses the universe of cases where the concurrence’s antecedent (C) is satisfied.
If the plea agreement does not clearly rely on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline and that guideline is not otherwise relevant to the judge’s analysis in approving the plea agreement, then the defendant is not eligible to seek a reduction. (If Not-P, then Not-X).
If a defendant’s plea agreement does not clearly rely on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline, then the defendant is not eligible to seek a reduction. (If Not-C, then Not-X).
Here, Not-P is a logical subset of Not-C. If it is true that both the plea agreement did not clearly rely on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline and the subsequently lowered guideline was not otherwise relevant to the judge’s analysis (Not-P is true), then it is necessarily true that the plea agreement did not clearly rely on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline (Not-C is true). As to the bottom half of the biconditional, then, the plurality’s rule is the logical subset of the concurrence’s rule—not the other way around.
This is precisely the problem illustrated by the example of Charlie and Pam’s lunch preferences examined above. Focusing on the bottom half of the biconditional (that is, the rules that dictate the conclusion that the defendant is not eligible for a sentence reduction), it cannot be said that the Freeman concurrence is the logical subset of the Freeman plurality. This holds even if—as the government argues in Hughes65—every defendant who would be eligible under the concurrence’s approach would also be eligible under the plurality’s approach.
While it is impossible for one biconditional rule to be a logical subset of another, there are two ways one might employ a logical-subset approach to the Marks rule in the context of biconditionals.
Option 1: There is binding precedent only as to one half of the biconditional.
One possibility is to read a fragmented case as setting binding precedent only as to the half of the biconditional that was dispositive in that case. With respect to Freeman, this approach would work as follows. Assume again that the Freeman plurality is broad enough that, every time a defendant is eligible for a reduction under the Freeman concurrence, he or she is necessarily eligible for a reduction under the Freeman plurality. This would mean that the top half of the Freeman concurrence is the logical subset of the top half of the plurality. On this approach, Freeman would establish the following proposition from Justice Sotomayor’s concurrence: If a defendant’s plea agreement clearly relies on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline, then the defendant is eligible to seek a reduction (If C, then X). That would be the “narrowest grounds” for purposes of Marks, and future courts would be bound to accept that rule.
Option 2: Different opinions govern different halves of the biconditional.
A second approach would look at both halves of the biconditional independently and apply the logical-subset inquiry to each, even though this approach would follow the concurrence for one half and the plurality for the other. Assume again that the Freeman plurality’s rule is such that every time a defendant is eligible for a reduction under the Freeman concurrence he or she is necessarily eligible for a reduction under the Freeman plurality. As with Option 1 above, the Freeman concurrence would be the logical subset of the plurality with respect to the top half of the biconditional. Accordingly, Freeman would establish the concurrence’s top-half rule: If a defendant’s plea agreement clearly relies on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline, then the defendant is eligible to seek a reduction (If C, then X).
This second approach, however, would also establish as binding law the bottom-half of the plurality’s biconditional.67 Assuming that C is a logical subset of P, the universe of cases where the plurality would find the defendant ineligible for a sentencing reduction (Not-P) would necessarily be a subset of the universe of cases where the concurrence would find the defendant ineligible (Not-C). Accordingly, Freeman would establish the plurality’s bottom-half rule: If the plea agreement does not clearly rely on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline and that guideline is not relevant to the judge’s analysis in approving the plea agreement, then the defendant is not eligible to seek a reduction (If Not-P, then Not-X).
If a defendant’s plea agreement clearly relies on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline, then the defendant is eligible to seek a reduction. (If C, then X.).
If the plea agreement does not clearly rely on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline and that guideline is not relevant to the judge’s analysis in approving the plea agreement, then the defendant is not eligible to seek a reduction. (If Not-P, then Not-X).
Here too, however, no binding law would be made with respect to the key area of disagreement between the plurality and concurrence: that is, the situation where the plea agreement does not refer to the subsequently lowered guideline but that guideline is relevant to the judge’s analysis in accepting the plea agreement. As with Option 1, future courts would be free to adopt the plurality’s more defendant-friendly top-half rule—which would allow a sentence reduction based on the judge’s use of the subsequently lowered guideline. Or they might adopt the concurrence’s less defendant-friendly bottom-half rule—which would forbid a sentence reduction due to the plea agreement’s failure to clearly rely on a subsequently lowered guideline. Or they might adopt some other rule.
This Essay’s goal is not to endorse either one of the two options above—or even to endorse the logical-subset approach as a general matter. Option 2 would generate more law than Option 1, and it would do so only as to areas of consensus between the plurality and the concurrence. On the other hand, it would mean that no single opinion would constitute the Court’s holding. The crucial point here is that under either variant of the logical-subset approach, the Freeman concurrence’s complete biconditional rule would not be binding. This makes sense because the plurality and concurrence would not necessarily reach the same result for a defendant whose plea agreement did not clearly refer to a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline. Although future courts would have the option to adopt both halves of the Freeman concurrence, they would not be bound to do so.
Under a logical-subset approach to the Marks rule, a nonmajority opinion would create binding law only if there is a complete overlap as to at least one-half of the biconditional. When there is only a partial overlap, one might still extract binding law using what has been called a shared-agreement approach.68 This is a more expansive approach because it can create binding law even if no logical-subset relationship exists between the plurality and the concurrence. But it still requires consensus between the judges in the majority in the sense that it would make law only as to the area of partial overlap between the antecedents of the competing rules. Even on this understanding of Marks, however, it is important to examine each half of the competing biconditional rules.
This would provide a workable solution even when the precise contours of the competing rules are unclear. For example, as described above, lower courts have disagreed about whether the Freeman plurality would deem a defendant eligible for a sentence reduction when the plea agreement clearly relied on a subsequently lowered guideline, but the district court judge did not consider that guideline when accepting the agreement.70 One might read the plurality opinion to endorse the general principle that a defendant is eligible for a sentence reduction when the subsequently lowered guideline is relevant to the judge’s analysis in approving the plea agreement, but not to conclusively resolve whether that guideline is relevant to the judge’s analysis solely because plea agreement itself relied on it.
If a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline is relevant to the judge’s analysis in approving the plea agreement, then the defendant is eligible to seek a reduction (If P, then X).
If a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline is relevant to the judge’s analysis in approving the plea agreement and the defendant’s plea agreement clearly relies on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline, then the defendant is eligible to seek a reduction (If both P and C, then X).
A shared agreement would also exist with respect to the bottom half of the competing biconditionals. The plurality’s bottom-half rule is (If Not-P, then Not-X), and the concurrence’s bottom-half rule is (If Not-C, then Not-X). These logically encompass the rule (If both Not-P and Not-C, then Not-X).
If a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline is not relevant to the judge’s analysis in approving the plea agreement and the defendant’s plea agreement does not clearly rely on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline, then the defendant is not eligible to seek a reduction (If both Not-P and Not-C, then Not-X).
As with the logical-subset inquiry, this approach would make no law in the potential areas of disagreement between the plurality and the concurrence. This would leave future courts free to adopt other rules to handle those areas of disagreement, including the plurality’s entire biconditional or the concurrence’s entire biconditional. It follows that under this partial-overlap approach, courts would not be compelled to adopt the Freeman concurrence in its entirety.
In Freeman, incorporating the rules of the dissenters could yield a range of outcomes, particularly in light of the uncertainty surrounding the scope of the plurality’s rule. This Essay will not itemize all of the possible permutations, but it will walk through one example to illustrate an important point. Counting the views of dissenting Justices is the only way to support the government’s position in Hughes: namely, that courts are bound to follow the bottom-half rule of the Freeman concurrence, which makes a defendant ineligible for a sentence reduction if the plea agreement does not clearly refer to a subsequently lowered guideline.
As described earlier, the dissenting Justices in Freeman endorsed a rule: if a defendant is sentenced pursuant to a Rule 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement, then the defendant is not eligible for a sentence reduction (If D, then Not-X.)75 Because this rule compels the consequent (Not-X), the four dissenting Justices would add no votes to either the plurality’s or the concurrence’s top-half rules. But the dissenters can create five-Justice coalitions by combining with either the plurality’s or the concurrence’s bottom-half rules.
The antecedent of this rule (Not-C)is a logical subset of the dissent’s rule. The universe of cases where a defendant is sentenced pursuant to an 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement (D) includes both cases where the plea agreement does clearly rely on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline (C) and cases where it does not clearly rely on a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline (Not-C).
Therefore, when we factor in the Freeman dissenters—using either a logical-subset or partial-overlap methodology—there are five Justices whose rules support the proposition that a defendant is ineligible for a sentence reduction when an 11(c)(1)(C) plea agreement does not clearly refer to a subsequently lowered sentencing guideline. The dissenting Justices would agree because in their view no defendants who are sentenced pursuant to an 11(c)(1)(C) plea are eligible. And the concurrence would agree because such a defendant’s plea agreement did not clearly refer to the subsequently lowered guideline. The big picture here is not surprising. When we incorporate the restrictive approach of the Freeman dissenters, we end up with case law that is less friendly to defendants.
It is beyond the scope of this Essay to comprehensively assess the advantages and disadvantages of an approach to Marks that considers the rationales of dissenting Justices. As discussed above, however, allowing dissenting Justices to determine the binding content of a Supreme Court decision would be a significant departure from the prevailing understanding of Marks.76 Yet the government’s position in Hughes—and the Eleventh Circuit’s reading of Freeman—can only be correct if the Supreme Court decides to embrace an approach to Marks that incorporates the views of dissenting Justices.
Courts and scholars have articulated a variety of ways to determine the law-generating content of Supreme Court decisions that lack a majority opinion. Whether the Court embraces an approach that requires logical subsets, an approach that identifies partial overlaps, or an approach that counts dissenting votes, a coherent methodology must take into account the unique features of biconditional rules. There is simply no way to do Marks right without analyzing biconditionals, and courts and litigants have been trying unsuccessfully for too long. Hughes is a perfect opportunity for the Supreme Court to direct courts and litigants to attend to biconditionals when applying the Marks rule, however conceived.
Adam Steinman is the University Research Professor of Law at the University of Alabama School of Law. Thanks to Jenny Carroll for her helpful comments and suggestions, and to the editors of the Yale Law Journal—especially Salil Dudani, Cody Poplin, Zoe Jacoby, and Jordan R. Goldberg—for their exemplary editorial work.
564 U.S. 522, 524 (2011).
Id. at 545 (Roberts, C.J., dissenting).
See infra notes 58-60 and accompanying text.
See infra notes 41-44 and accompanying text.
Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1)(C).
Freeman v. United States, 564 U.S. 522, 528 (2011) (plurality opinion).
18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) (2012).
Freeman, 564 U.S. at 529 (plurality opinion).
Id. at 529 (citation omitted).
Id. at 538-39 (Sotomayor, J., concurring).
Id. at 544 (Roberts, C.J., dissenting).
Davis, 825 F.3d at 1026-27; Epps, 707 F.3d at 351-52.
See supra notes 19-24 and accompanying text.
See Hughes, 849 F.3d at 1015; Rivera-Martínez, 665 F.3d at 348; Brown, 653 F.3d at 340 n.1.
Rivera-Martínez, 665 F.3d at 347-48.
United States v. Epps, 707 F.3d 337, 350-51 & n.8 (D.C. Cir. 2013).
Davis, 825 F.3d at 1022-23 (quoting Epps, 707 F.3d at 351).
Epps, 707 F.3d at 350.
Davis, 825 F.3d at 1022-26; Epps, 707 F.3d at 348-51.
138 S. Ct. 542, 543 (2017) (granting certiorari).
Hughes, 849 F.3d at 1011-15.
See Petition for a Writ of Certiorari at i, Hughes, 138 S. Ct. 542 (2017) (No. 17-155).
See supra notes 13-14 and accompanying text.
This is because both rules share the same consequent (X).
See supra notes 13-14, 32-47 and accompanying text.
Adam N. Steinman, Case Law, 97 B.U. L. Rev. 1947, 2007 (2017).
Michael Abramowicz & Maxwell Stearns, Defining Dicta, 57 Stan. L. Rev. 953, 1038 (2005).
Id. at 530 (plurality opinion) (emphasis added).
See supra notes 32-40 and accompanying text.
See supra note 27 and accompanying text (describing the rule set out in the Freeman dissent).
See supra notes 75-76 and accompanying text.
Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977) (quoting Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 169 n.15 (1976) (opinion of Stewart, Powell & Stevens, JJ.)).
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 325 (2003) (quoting Nichols v. United States, 511 U.S. 738, 745-46 (1994)).
138 S. Ct. 542, 543 (2017) (granting certiorari); Petition for a Writ of Certiorari at 21, Hughes v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 542 (2017) (No. 17-155) (“The Court should clarify the Marks rule . . . .”).
Recent discussions of the topic include Ryan C. Williams, Questioning Marks: Plurality Decisions and Precedential Constraint, 69 Stan. L. Rev. 795 (2017), and Richard M. Re, Beyond the Marks Rule, 132 Harv. L. Rev. (forthcoming), http://ssrn.com/abstract=3090620 [https://‌perma.cc/5BTW-QB38].
See Brief of Petitioner at 37-55, Hughes v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 542 (2017) (No. 17-155). The defendant argues in the alternative that decisions with no majority opinion should create no binding precedent. See id. at 55-59.
See Brief for the United States at 33-35, Hughes, 138 S. Ct. 542 (2017) (No. 17-155). The government alternatively argues that failing to satisfy the Freeman concurrence’s eligibility test is fatal because that failure would combine with the reasoning of the four Freeman dissenters to compel the conclusion that the defendant in Hughes is ineligible for a sentence reduction. See id. at 35-37.
See Bryan A. Garner et al., The Law of Judicial Precedent 202 (2016) (noting that the Marks rule “is somewhat less important for the Supreme Court itself” because the Supreme Court “has the flexibility to interpret, clarify, or refashion its precedents, not to mention overturn them”).
See, e.g., United States v. Hughes, 849 F.3d 1008, 1015 (11th Cir. 2017); United States v. Rivera-Martínez, 665 F.3d 344, 348-50 (1st Cir. 2011); United States v. Brown, 653 F.3d 337, 340 & n.1 (4th Cir. 2011).
See United States v. Davis, 825 F.3d 1014, 1026 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc); United States v. Epps, 707 F.3d 337, 350 (D.C. Cir. 2013).
Davis, 825 F.3d at 1030 (Bea, J., dissenting); United States v. Duvall, 740 F.3d 604, 612 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc).
Freeman v. United States, 564 U.S. 522, 529 (2011) (plurality opinion); see Duvall, 740 F.3d at 614 n.5 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc) (relying on this “beginning point” language from the Freeman plurality).
Freeman, 564 U.S. at 532, 533 (plurality opinion) (emphasis added); see Davis, 825 F.3d at 1037-38 (Bea, J., dissenting) (relying on the Freeman plurality’s “subset of defendants” statement); Duvall, 740 F.3d at 608-09 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc) (relying on the Freeman plurality’s “intermediate position” statement).
Rivera-Martínez, 665 F.3d at 348; see Hughes, 849 F.3d at 1015 (“[W]henever Justice Sotomayor’s opinion would permit a sentence reduction, the plurality opinion would as well.”).
Epps, 707 F.3d at 350 (quoting King v. Palmer, 950 F.2d 771, 781 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (en banc)); see also Duvall, 740 F.3d at 620 (Williams, J., concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc) (“Where (1) Rule B calls for relief in every case where Rule A does, and (2) Rule B calls for relief in no other cases, Rule B is clearly ‘narrower’ than Rule A.”).
United States v. Hughes, 849 F.3d 1008, 1014-15 (11th Cir. 2017) (quoting Davis, 825 F.3d at 1035 (Bea, J., dissenting)); see also Duvall, 740 F.3d at 610 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc) (“Marks means that, when one of the opinions in a splintered Supreme Court decision has adopted a legal standard that would produce results with which a majority of the Court in that case necessarily would agree, that opinion controls.”).
See Duvall, 740 F.3d at 611, 614, 617 n.8 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc).
See id. at 614; see also Davis, 825 F.3d at 1036-37 (Bea, J., dissenting) (“In circumstances in which Justice Sotomayor would permit reduction of a prior sentence, so too would the plurality (resulting in a five-Justice majority). Where Justice Sotomayor’s criterion are not met, she would find agreement in the four-Justice dissent that the prisoner’s sentence is not ’based on’ the Guidelines (which would also result in a five-Justice majority). Justice Sotomayor’s approach therefore constitutes the ‘narrowest grounds’ for reaching a result that, in any circumstance, will be consistent with the result that a majority of the Supreme Court would reach under Freeman.”).
See Adam N. Steinman, To Say What the Law Is: Rules, Results, and the Dangers of Inferential Stare Decisis, 99 Va. L. Rev. 1737, 1792-93 (2013) (describing how legal rules can be expressed as conditional statements).
Horacio Arlo-Costa & Paul Egré, The Logic of Conditionals, Stan. Encyclopedia Phil. (Edward N. Zalta ed., Winter 2016), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/logic -conditionals [https://perma.cc/CTY7-VHWG].
See supra notes 25-26 and accompanying text (describing the rule outlined in the Freeman concurrence).
Steinman, supra note 58 (“When courts formulate a test to govern a particular issue, the test is often meant to determine both success and failure.”).
Freeman v. United States, 564 U.S. 522, 542 (2016) (Sotomayor, J., concurring) (emphasis added); see also id. at 543 n.9 (noting that if the plea agreement “does not contain any references to the Guidelines,” then “a prisoner sentenced under such an agreement would not be eligible” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
The only exception to this principle would be if the antecedents of each biconditional are identical. If so, each biconditional would technically be a logical subset of the other. If they are identical, however, there would be no Marks problem because there would be a majority of Justices endorsing identical rationales.
See Brief for the United States at 33-35, Hughes v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 542 (2017) (No. 17-155).
United States v. Duvall, 740 F.3d 604, 621-22 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (Williams, J., concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc).
One might argue more generally that only the dispositive half of a biconditional rule should be binding because only the dispositive half is “necessary” to the Court’s decision. See Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 67 (1996) (stating that courts are bound to follow “those portions of the opinion necessary to [the Court’s] result”); Steinman, supra note 53, at 1803 (noting the argument that the other half of a biconditional rule is “not strictly necessary”); see also Abramowicz & Stearns, supra note 59, at 1039 (considering this view but arguing that “[a]s a general matter, we believe that the inverse statements of holdings generally should count as holdings as well”). On this line of argument, the non-dispositive half of a biconditional rule would not be binding even if a majority opinion endorses an entire biconditional rule. This Essay assumes that, as a general matter, a complete biconditional rule can be binding as a matter of stare decisis even if only one half of that biconditional rule is dispositive in the precedent-setting case.
See Williams, supra note 7, at 838 (arguing that Marks should focus on “the domain of shared agreement between the judgment-supportive rationales”); Re, supra note 7, at 31 (describing but criticizing such an approach).
See Steinman, supra note 58, at 2003 (proposing this synthesis of if-then rules as a way to “identify the stare decisis effect of decisions where no faction within the majority articulates a rule that is identifiably the ‘narrowest’”).
Cf. Dawn Johnsen, Justice Brennan: Legacy of a Champion, 111 Mich. L. Rev. 1151, 1159 (2013) (describing Justice Brennan’s focus on “getting to five”).
See, e.g., United States v. Johnson, 467 F.3d 56, 65 (1st Cir. 2006) (deeming it permissible to “combin[e] a dissent with a concurrence to find the ground of decision embraced by a majority of the Justices”).
Garner, supra note 15, at 200. Recall that Marks itself suggests this approach: “the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds” (emphasis added). See supra note 1 and accompanying text.
United States v. Robison, 505 F.3d 1208, 1221 (11th Cir. 2007); see also King v. Palmer, 950 F.2d 771, 783 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (en banc) (“[W]e do not think we are free to combine a dissent with a concurrence to form a Marks majority.”).

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