The Issue
Almost every federal defendant signs a federal appeal waiver. You plead guilty, you give up the right to challenge your sentence, and the government gets finality. For decades, courts treated that waiver as ironclad. Sign it, and you were stuck with whatever the judge handed down. On June 18, 2026, the Supreme Court changed that. In Hunter v. United States, the Court ruled that an appeal waiver cannot be enforced when doing so would produce a miscarriage of justice. That word—“unenforceable”—just became the most important word in federal criminal defense.
Background
Munson Hunter III was charged with ten counts of bank and wire fraud. The scheme cost financial institutions about half a million dollars. Hunter cut a deal. He pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting wire fraud. The government dropped the other nine. As part of that bargain, Hunter signed a broad appeal waiver. He kept only the right to claim ineffective assistance of counsel.
Then sentencing went sideways. The probation office recommended that Hunter be forced to take any mental health medication a doctor prescribed. Hunter objected. He told the court he did not drink, did not use drugs, and did not want to be forced to medicate. The judge imposed the condition anyway. Hunter got 51 months in prison and three years of supervised release with forced medication attached.
Hunter appealed. He argued that forced medication violated his constitutional right to refuse unwanted drugs. The Fifth Circuit threw the appeal out. Under its precedent, an appeal waiver controlled even when the sentence was unconstitutional. The only exceptions were ineffective counsel or a sentence above the statutory maximum. Neither applied. So Hunter was stuck. The Supreme Court took the case to resolve a split among the circuits.
Strategic Implications
Justice Kagan wrote for an 8-1 Court. The holding is clean: an agreement not to appeal a sentence is unenforceable when it would result in a miscarriage of justice. That means an egregious error that would bring the judicial system into disrepute. The vote looks lopsided. It is not. You can read the slip opinion at supremecourt.gov for the full reasoning.
Kagan grounded the rule in the role of the judiciary itself. A district court must accept a plea agreement before it takes effect. An appeals court has exclusive control over whether to enforce a waiver. Courts are in the middle of the process, so courts bear responsibility for the result. When enforcing a waiver would cement an egregious error in place, the court’s own integrity is on the line. That is the source of the power—not contract law, but the institutional stake every court has in the sentences it approves.
Then came Justice Gorsuch. His concurrence, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, is longer than the majority opinion. Gorsuch opened with a line that should be read aloud in every public defender’s office: the jury trial has given way to a conveyor belt of plea bargains. He argued the miscarriage-of-justice rule reaches far beyond Hunter’s forced-medication claim. He listed categories: penalties for offenses the defendant was never convicted of, mandatory minimums the law does not permit, unconstitutional conditions of supervised release, and sentences imposed without basic procedure. Gorsuch even flagged the deeper problem—whether a waiver signed before a defendant knows his sentence is truly “knowing and voluntary” at all.
Kavanaugh, Alito, and Barrett pushed back. They called the holding narrow. So beneath the 8-1 headline sits a real 5-4 divide over how far this rule travels. That divide is where the next decade of federal criminal litigation gets fought.
How Does This Apply in Louisiana?
Hunter is federal law. It governs every federal prosecution in the Middle, Eastern, and Western Districts of Louisiana. If your client signed an appeal waiver in federal court, that waiver is no longer the end of the conversation. It is the beginning of one.
Here is the practical move. When a federal sentence in Louisiana contains an egregious error, do not assume the waiver bars review. File the appeal. Argue the miscarriage-of-justice exception. Use Gorsuch’s roadmap. If the sentence imposes a condition that violates a constitutional right—free speech, free exercise of religion, the right to refuse forced medication—you have a strong argument that enforcing the waiver would discredit the court.
Think about a defendant named John. John pleads guilty to one count. The plea drops five others. At sentencing, the judge calculates John’s guideline range using all six counts—including the five the government agreed to drop. John’s sentence balloons. John signed a waiver. Before Hunter, John was finished. After Hunter, John has a live argument that punishing him for conduct he was never convicted of is exactly the kind of egregious error the Supreme Court just described. This matters in any serious felony criminal defense case.
Louisiana practitioners should also watch the federal sentencing guidelines angle. Hunter’s own sentence relied on relevant conduct—the rule that lets a judge consider charges that were dropped. Gorsuch criticized that directly. That criticism is not binding yet. But it is a signal. Build your record now. Object at sentencing. Preserve the constitutional argument. Put the miscarriage-of-justice framework on the record so it survives the waiver.
And remember the limits. Kagan called this a high bar. The exception is for egregious errors, not ordinary disagreements about sentencing. Do not waste it on a routine guideline dispute. Save it for the sentence that genuinely shocks the conscience. That is where Hunter has teeth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Hunter mean appeal waivers are dead?
No. Appeal waivers are still generally enforceable. Hunter creates a narrow exception for egregious errors that would discredit the judicial system. Most waivers will still hold, but the absolute bar is gone.
What counts as a miscarriage of justice?
The Court set a high bar and declined to define it fully. Clear examples include sentences exceeding the statutory maximum, punishment for offenses the defendant was never convicted of, and conditions that violate firmly established constitutional rights.
I already signed an appeal waiver. Can I still appeal?
Maybe. It depends on whether your sentence contains the kind of egregious error Hunter describes. Talk to a federal criminal defense lawyer immediately, because appeal deadlines are short and unforgiving.
Does this apply to forced medication conditions?
That was the exact issue in Hunter. The Court sent his forced-medication claim back to the lower court to decide whether it qualifies. A condition that violates the right to refuse unwanted medication is a strong candidate for the exception.
Does Hunter help with relevant conduct sentencing?
Possibly. Justice Gorsuch criticized punishing a defendant based on dropped or uncharged conduct. That view is not binding, but it gives defense counsel a framework to challenge relevant-conduct enhancements. Preserve the argument at sentencing.
Conclusion
Hunter put a crack in the plea bargain. For the first time in decades, a signed appeal waiver is not the final word. If your federal sentence contains an egregious error, that waiver may not save the government. File the appeal. Make the argument. The Supreme Court just handed federal defendants a key. Use it.
Portions of this article were prepared with the assistance of a generative AI drafting tool. All legal and factual assertions have been reviewed and verified by counsel.