Supreme Court to Revisit Stinson Deference

The Supreme Court has granted the petition for writ of certiorari in Beaird v. United States to review whether Stinson v. United States “still correctly states the rule for the deference that courts must give the commentary to the Sentencing Guidelines.”  This development not only opens the door for reconsideration of another judicial-deference doctrine in the wake of Loper Bright, but it positions Beaird as a test case for whether Loper Bright’s underlying reasoning—that judges must provide their independent judgment about the best meaning of the law—extends beyond the administrative-law context.

Although Loper Bright is well-known for the overruling of Chevron deference, the decision left untouched a whole host of related doctrines, including Auer/Seminole Rock deference to an agency’s interpretation of ambiguous regulations, Baltimore Gas deference to an agency’s scientific and technical determinations, and Cassell deference to interpretations of an agency’s past adjudications.  To date, the Court has done little to disturb these other deference doctrines.  The Loper Bright court itself only discussed two other forms of deference.  Chief Justice Roberts hinted first at the durability of deference on so-called mixed questions of law-and-fact, as found in cases like Gray v. Powell and NLRB v. Hearst.  He also suggested Loper Bright would have no impact on Kisor v. Wilkie, which reformulated Auer deference and preserved the “comparative expertise” of agencies when resolving their own regulatory ambiguities. 

Subsequent actions by the Court in the 2024 and 2025 Terms similarly suggest seeming disinterest in revisiting deference more broadly.  In Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, for example, Justice Kavanaugh explained that “[b]lack-letter administrative law [still] instructs that when an agency makes . . . speculative assessments or predictive or scientific judgments, and decides what qualifies as significant or feasible or the like, a reviewing court must be at its ‘most deferential.’”  And the Court passed on the opportunity to revisit agency-specific deference in Valley Hospital Medical Center v. NLRB and United Natural Foods v. NLRB.

But the grant in Beaird marks a change in course.  Stinson deference is now on the table.  This doctrine requires courts to defer to the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s interpretation of the federal Sentencing Guidelines, as reflected in the Commission’s official commentary.  As one of my colleagues previously explained, “there is, at a minimum, substantial tension between [Loper Bright and Kisor] and the idea that courts must defer in the criminal context to the Sentencing Commission’s views on the Sentencing Guidelines . . . with the added wrinkle that the Sentencing Guidelines themselves are not technically binding on courts.”  In short, Stinson is an uneasy fit in the post-Chevron landscape.  Not only does it apply in the criminal context, raising concerns about the rule of lenity, but it requires deference to non-binding guidelines that are developed by an allegedly independent authority that is neither subject to traditional executive-branch supervision nor directly answerable to Congress or the Judiciary.

Kendrick Beaird was charged with, and ultimately pleaded guilty to, a single count of unlawful gun possession.  During sentencing, Mr. Beaird objected to a sentencing enhancement predicated on the attachment of a 17-round magazine to his semiautomatic firearm, arguing the Commission’s definition of “large capacity magazine” impermissibly expanded the scope of the Guidelines.  The district court overruled this objection and concluded Mr. Beaird should face 63–78 months of imprisonment.  On appeal before the Fifth Circuit, he argued that the Supreme Court’s decision in Kisor casts doubt on the continuing validity of Stinson.  And on the merits, whether Stinson is still good law is likely determinative to his case.  As Mr. Beaird argued in his petition:

[I]n the absence of Stinson—that is, in a framework that required the courts to exhaust tools of statutory construction before deferring to the Commentary—a 17-bullet magazine would not likely qualify for enhancement as a “large capacity magazine.”  When the courts’ traditional tools of interpretation are exhausted, it becomes clear that a “large capacity magazine” refers to one that is larger than the industry standard.  A 15-round magazine (and a 17-round magazine, at issue here) is a perfectly ordinary sized magazine in the contemporary consumer market.

Given the import of Loper Bright and Kisor, it seems difficult to continue justifying Stinson deference.  If courts are in the business of exercising independent judgment and articulating the best meaning of the law, the Sentencing Commission’s view about the meaning of the Guidelines should matter little, except so far as that view is probative of the original meaning of the underlying text.  This is exactly the sort of “respect” that Loper Bright demands judges pay to agency legal interpretations when they apply the contemporanea expositio and interpres consuetudo canons.  Reflexive abdication of the judicial role—particularly in the criminal context—sits uneasily with Loper Bright’scentral holding.

One final note: the grant in Beaird leaves unresolved the pending petition in Poore v. United States, another case challenging the continued relevance of Stinson deference.  The Poore petition (which we have written about here, here, and here) was filed in August 2025 and has now been relisted nine times.  At this point, the Court may continue to hold the petition until it resolves Beaird, and then summarily dispose of it.  Either way, the Court has signaled it will revisit Stinson deference in the 2026 Term.

Ryan P. Mulvey is Senior Policy Counsel at Americans for Prosperity Foundation.  In his role at Cause of Action Institute, Ryan has served as lead counsel on Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo since the initiation of the case.