Whether the standard for triggering judicial deference to an agency's interpretation of its own regulations, as clarified in Kisor v. Wilkie, 139 S. Ct. 2400 (2019), governs the extent to which courts must defer to the Sentencing Commission's interpretations of its own guidelines and policy statements for federal criminal sentencing

QUESTION PRESENTED In Stinson v. United States, 508 U.S. 36 (1993), this Court held that a court tasked with deciding whether to defer to the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s interpretive commentary to the Sentencing Guidelines should apply the same standard that governs when all other federal agencies purport to interpret their own Rock (or Auer) deference. In Kisor v. Wilkie, 139 S. Ct. 2400 (2019), this Court recalibrated that standard, clarifying that the possibility of deference under Seminole Rock (and Auer) may arise only where the pertinent regulatory text is “genuinely ambiguous, even after a court has resorted to all the standard tools of interpretation.” Jd. at 2414. In this case, the court of appeals applied its en banc decision that deepened an entrenched circuit conflict that has arisen over Kisor’s impact on the standard for deciding whether and when to defer to the Commission’s Guidelines commentary. On the premise that Stinson demands adherence to the “plainly erroneous or inconsistent” formulation Kisor discarded as a “caricature” of this Court’s deference doctrine, 139 S. Ct. at 2415, sentencing judges in at least six circuits— the First, Second, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, and Tenth—continue to defer even to commentary that operates to expand the substantive scope of unambiguous guideline text. In contrast, judges in at least four circuits—the Third, Sixth, Ninth, and Eleventh—apply Kisor, and so defer only to commentary that reasonably resolves genuine ambiguity in the corresponding guideline. Meanwhile, judges in the Fourth Circuit are left to parse conflicting panel decisions holding both that Kisor controls, and the exact opposite. The question presented is: Whether the standard for triggering judicial deference to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulations, as clarified in Kisor v. Wilkie, 139 S. Ct. 2400 (2019), governs the extent to which courts must defer to the Sentencing Commission’s interpretations of its own guidelines and policy statements for federal criminal sentencing. 1