Supreme Court Expands Exceptions to Plea-Deal Appeal Waivers (1)

The US Supreme Court opened the door for more criminal defendants who sign appeal waivers as part of plea agreements to challenge their sentences, ruling such waivers aren’t limited to two previously recognized exceptions.

In a 8-1 ruling on Thursday, the justices said appeal waivers aren’t enforceable when doing so would result in a miscarriage of justice. The court vacated a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and remanded the case for further proceedings.

“If a court always carries out those waivers—no matter the kind or degree of error tainting a sentence—the judicial system’s integrity may come into question,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court.

An appeal waiver wouldn’t be enforceable, Kagan wrote, if a judge imposed as a condition of supervised release that the defendant not become pregnant. Or, she continued, if the judge “let an orangutan pick a sentence out of a hat.”

The decision adopts a view of appeal waivers held by the majority of federal courts of appeals. The US solicitor general’s office had urged the justices to find knowing and voluntary appeal waivers enforceable in all circumstances.

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the court’s holding, describing sentencing appeals as a “mere statutory right of modern origin” and saying the Supreme Court has no authority to supervise how lower courts enforce waivers in valid plea agreements.

The ruling could have immediate impact on the number of sentencing appeals filed around the country. More than 90% of state and federal cases are resolved via plea deal, and appeal waivers are a standard part of most agreements.

Petitioner Munson P. Hunter III was ordered to take mental health medication directed by a physician as part of supervised release conditions for a wire fraud conviction. Hunter appealed, arguing the medication requirement violated his constitutional rights.

The Fifth Circuit dismissed his claim, saying it was barred by the appeal waiver he’d signed.

The ruling builds on the court’s 2019 decision in Garza v. Idaho, which held that appeal waivers aren’t an “absolute bar” on all appellate claims.

Lower courts have previously acknowledged a limited number of exceptions—most commonly sentences greater than the law allows and ineffective assistance of counsel.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, in a concurrence joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, questioned whether plea deals might themselves be unconstitutional. While pleas are the norm now, at one point, Gorsuch wrote, courts would have found the idea of waiving the right to a jury trial “abhorrent.”

None of Gorsuch’s conservative colleagues on the court joined his concurrence, and three—Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett—noted they felt his view of the miscarriage-of-justice standard also laid out in his opinion was too lenient.

Hunter was represented by Lisa Blatt of Williams & Connolly.

The case is Munson P. Hunter III v. United States, U.S., No. 24-1063, decided on 6/18/26.