Freeman v. United States
Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.
Status
More on how this was screened
Hughes v. United States replaced Freeman's fractured framework with a majority rule; the 3 confirmed treatments, including two earlier limitations on Freeman's reach, are listed below.
724 later cases cite Freeman v. United States; 81 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.
Relying on Freeman v. United States?
This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.
Treatments
Abrogated
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The Supreme Court resolved the uncertainty created by Freeman's divided decision and replaced it with a majority rule that a Type-C sentence is based on the Guidelines when the range formed part of the sentencing court's framework.
Hughes v. United States · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
divided decision in Freeman, the Court now holds that a sentence imposed pursuant to a Type-C agreement is “based on” the defendant’s Guidelines range so long as that range was part of the framework the district court relied on in imposing the sentence or accepting the agreement.
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Limited
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The en banc Ninth Circuit held that Freeman supplied no controlling rationale under Marks and bound lower courts only to its specific result.
United States v. Davis · Ninth Circuit en banc · filed
Revisiting Freeman and our application of Marks to fractured Supreme Court opinions, we hold that where we can identify no rationale common to a majority of the Justices, we are bound only by the result.
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The Second Circuit held that Freeman did not decide which Guidelines range is “applicable” when the parties and sentencing court calculated different ranges.
United States v. Leonard · Second Circuit · filed
We are not persuaded that Freeman compels the result Leonard urges. First, Freeman did not have to decide what constitutes the applicable sentencing range for purposes of a § 3582(c)(2) reduction.
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