The Supreme Court on Thursday sent the case of a Texas man who is seeking to appeal one of the conditions that a federal judge imposed as part of his sentence back to the lower court for another look. By a vote of 8-1, the justices ruled in Hunter v. United States that defendants can sometimes appeal a conviction or sentence even when they have agreed not to do so.
In 2024, Munson Hunter pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting wire fraud; as part of the plea deal, the government dismissed nine other counts with which Hunter had been charged. Hunter also agreed to waive his right to appeal except for claims that his lawyer’s performance had been so poor that it had effectively deprived him of his constitutional right to be represented by an attorney. In addition to a sentence of over four years in prison, the court further required him to receive mental health treatment and take medicine as part of his supervised release.
Hunter wanted to challenge that supervised-release condition, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the appeal waiver barred him from doing so – even if the judge had advised him that he had a right to appeal. On Thursday, the Supreme Court threw out that decision.
Writing for the majority, Justice Elena Kagan explained that “an agreement not to appeal a sentence is unenforceable when it would result in a miscarriage of justice—meaning, when it would leave in place the kind of egregious error that would bring the judicial system into disrepute.” Because the court of appeals had not reviewed Hunter’s case under this standard, the Supreme Court sent the dispute back to that court for it “to decide whether enforcing Hunter’s appeal waiver would result in a miscarriage of justice.”
Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter. He wrote that there was “no basis for excusing Hunter from his appeal waiver” and he argued that the court’s ruling seemed “to rest on its policy concern that holding defendants to their waivers may sometimes lead to unfair results or make federal courts look bad. But, policy concerns are not rules of decision in courts of law.”
Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, Court rules defendants may under certain circumstances appeal a sentencing condition despite an appellate waiver, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 18, 2026, 11:25 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-defendants-may-appeal-sentencing-condition-despite-an-appellate-waiver-under-certain/
