District court grants Fernandez compassionate release, citing doubts about the validity of his conviction

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff granted Jose Fernandez's motion for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A), finding that doubts about whether his conviction rested on truthful testimony constituted an "extraordinary and compelling reason" for sentence reduction. Rakoff reasoned that if a conviction may be unjust, continuing to imprison the defendant is itself an extraordinary circumstance. The government immediately appealed to the Second Circuit, arguing that § 3582 was not a mechanism for challenging conviction validity.