United States v. Aaron Haynes, 55 F.4th 1075

Aaron Haynes pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ≥40g fentanyl and ≥100g heroin, offenses that carry a five‑year statutory mandatory minimum under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B).
Haynes sought "safety‑valve" relief under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f), which permits sentencing below statutory minima if five requirements are met, including the subsection (f)(1) criminal‑history criteria.
The district court found Haynes ineligible under § 3553(f)(1)(B) because he had a prior conviction that counts as a 3‑point offense under the Sentencing Guidelines.
Separately, the government moved under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(e) for a below‑minimum sentence based on substantial assistance; the court granted that motion and sentenced Haynes to 32 months, but considered his § 3553(f) ineligibility as a factor.
On appeal the sole legal question was the meaning of the word "and" in § 3553(f)(1): whether the subsection requires absence of all three listed criminal‑history conditions (conjunctive) or absence of each individually (distributive/conjunctive‑as‑shorthand, effectively "or").
The Sixth Circuit (Kethledge, J.) affirmed the district court, adopting the distributive reading that a defendant must lack each disqualifying category to be eligible for safety‑valve relief.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Haynes)	Defendant's Argument (Government)	Held
Does § 3553(f)(1)’s use of "and" require the defendant to lack all three listed disqualifiers, or to lack any one of them?	"And" is conjunctive: defendant must show absence of all three disqualifiers for ineligibility; because Haynes lacks a 2‑point violent offense and has <5 points, he is eligible.	"And" functions distributively/jointly: the prefatory negative applies to each subpart, so a defendant is eligible only if he lacks each listed disqualifier (i.e., must not have >4 points, must not have a prior 3‑point, and must not have a prior 2‑point violent offense).	The court adopted the distributive reading: a defendant must lack each of the three conditions to obtain safety‑valve relief; Haynes was ineligible because he had a prior 3‑point offense.

United States v. Miller, 734 F.3d 530 (6th Cir. 2013) (standard of review: de novo statutory interpretation)
United States v. Pulsifer, 39 F.4th 1018 (8th Cir. 2022) (discusses distributive vs. joint senses of "and" and avoids surplusage)
OfficeMax, Inc. v. United States, 428 F.3d 583 (6th Cir. 2005) (illustrative discussion of joint vs. distributive "and")
Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, 573 U.S. 302 (Supreme Court 2014) (presumption about identical words in different parts of a statute)
Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (Supreme Court 2000) (cardinal principle: give effect to every clause and word)
United States v. Lopez, 998 F.3d 431 (9th Cir. 2021) (conjunctive interpretation argued in dissenting line of authority)
United States v. Palomares, 52 F.4th 640 (5th Cir. 2022) (disagreeing opinions on conjunctive vs. distributive reading)
United States v. Pace, 48 F.4th 741 (7th Cir. 2022) (another circuit decision addressing the same textual issue)
Corley v. United States, 556 U.S. 303 (Supreme Court 2009) (anti‑surplusage canon discussion)
Marx v. General Revenue Corp., 568 U.S. 371 (Supreme Court 2013) (surplusage and drafting redundancies)