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This Court’s correct decision in U.S. v. Campbell conflicts directly with the panel’s decision in this case, as Judge King acknowledged in dissent. Creating an intra-circuit split, the panel also split from the Third and Sixth Circuits, which have correctly recognized that Kisor v. Wilkie necessarily limited deference to genuinely ambiguous rules and regulations in all applications of Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co.

The panel’s decision that this Circuit should defer reflexively to the commentary of the Sentencing Commission—even absent ambiguity—endangers individual liberty and distorts the independent judicial office enshrined in Article III of the Constitution.