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University of Miami Law Review

Abstract

The Sentencing Guidelines shape nearly every federal sentence. Judges must calculate and consider the Guidelines’ recommended range before deciding how long someone goes to prison. For decades, though, courts treated the Sentencing Commission’s commentary about the Guidelines as controlling—even when the guideline’s text was clear and unambiguous.

That changed with United States v. Dupree. Sitting en banc, the Eleventh Circuit held that the Supreme Court’s decision in Kisor v. Wilkie—which limits when courts may defer to an agency’s interpretation of its own rules—applies to the Sentencing Guidelines. After Dupree, courts may not defer to the commentary unless, after exhausting the traditional tools of statutory construction, the guideline is genuinely ambiguous.

So what does the end of reflexive deference mean for real people facing federal sentences? This Article surveys the Eleventh Circuit’s post-Dupree landscape, mapping the emerging patterns, fault lines, and ways the court has embraced—and sometimes sidestepped—its interpretive duty. One theme stands out: the court’s analysis begins (and often ends) with the arguments the parties develop. Dupree gives defendants and prosecutors alike a meaningful chance to shape the governing law.

Still, unresolved questions remain. How should lenity operate when courts construe the Guidelines? How will the Sentencing Commission respond to Dupree and similar decisions in other circuits? And as the Supreme Court continues to narrow administrative deference, what does that signal for Dupree’s staying power and the sliver of deference it maintains? These pressures will define the next chapter of federal sentencing.

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