Allen v. United States

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the Atlantic and Maryland Reporters. Users are requested to notify the Clerk of the Court of any formal errors so that corrections may be made before the bound volumes go to press. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS No. 24-CO-0716 HENRY O. ALLEN, APPELLANT, V. UNITED STATES, APPELLEE. Appeal from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (2002-FEL-006601) (J. Michael Ryan, Judge) (Argued November 20, 2025 Decided July 30, 2026) Paul Maneri, Public Defender Service, with whom Jaclyn Frankfurt and Alice Wang, Public Defender Service, were on the briefs, for appellant. Chimnomnso N. Kalu, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Jeanine F. Pirro, United States Attorney, and Chrisellen R. Kolb, Nicholas P. Coleman, and Eliot Folsom, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee. Before DEAHL, HOWARD, and SHANKER, Associate Judges. Opinion for the court by Associate Judge DEAHL. Opinion by Associate Judge SHANKER, concurring in part and dissenting in part, at page 37.  2 DEAHL, Associate Judge: Henry Allen was convicted in 2003 of first-degree murder and related offenses. He was sentenced to forty-five years in prison. Twenty years later, Allen moved for compassionate release under D.C. Code § 24-403.04(a). The trial court denied his motion after concluding that he failed to demonstrate “extraordinary and compelling reasons” that would render him eligible for a sentence reduction. D.C. Code § 24-403.04(a)(3). Allen argues on appeal that the trial court erred in two ways: (1) by concluding that it could not consider evidence of his rehabilitation when evaluating whether he had demonstrated “extraordinary and compelling reasons” that render him eligible for release; and (2) by reviewing the reasons supporting Allen’s release piecemeal, and assessing whether any one of them was individually extraordinary and compelling, rather than evaluating whether the factors cleared that bar when viewed collectively. We largely agree with Allen on both counts. We conclude that the trial court erred by categorically excluding evidence of Allen’s rehabilitation from its eligibility analysis. And while it is unclear whether the trial court committed the second ascribed error, we agree that the trial court should have considered his relevant circumstances in their totality as well. We therefore vacate the trial court’s order and remand for reconsideration of Allen’s motion.  3 I. Legal Background The D.C. Council enacted a compassionate release statute in April 2020, prompted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. See COVID-19 Response Supplemental Emergency Amendment Act of 2020, D.C. Act 23-286, § 305(b), 67 D.C. Reg. 4178 (Apr. 10, 2020). That temporary legislation was later permanently codified with a few changes, most notably making sentence modifications mandatory rather than discretionary if a movant satisfies the statutory requirements. See Omnibus Public Safety and Justice Amendment Act of 2020, D.C. Law 23-274, § 1203(b), 68 D.C. Reg. 1034 (2021); see also Bailey v. United States, 251 A.3d 724, 732-33 (D.C. 2021) (per curiam). The current statute provides: (a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the court shall modify a term of imprisonment imposed upon a defendant if it determines the defendant is not a danger to the safety of any other person or the community, pursuant to the factors to be considered in 18 U.S.C. §§ 3142(g) and 3553(a) and evidence of the defendant’s rehabilitation while incarcerated, and: (1) The defendant has a terminal illness, which means a disease or condition with an end-of-life trajectory; (2) The defendant is 60 years of age or older and has served at least 20 years in prison; or (3) Other extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a modification, including:  4 (A) A debilitating medical condition involving an incurable illness, or a debilitating injury from which the defendant will not recover; (B) Elderly age, defined as a defendant who: (i) Is 60 years of age or older; (ii) Has served the lesser of 15 years or 75% of the defendant’s sentence; and (iii) Suffers from a chronic or serious medical condition related to the aging process or that causes an acute vulnerability to severe medical complications or death as a result of COVID-19; (C) Death or incapacitation of the family member caregiver of the defendant’s children; or (D) Incapacitation of a spouse or a domestic partner when the defendant would be the only available caregiver for the spouse or domestic partner. D.C. Code § 24-403.04(a). From this text we have distilled two requirements for movants seeking a sentence reduction: (1) non-dangerousness, captured by the statute’s opening sentence; and (2) eligibility, captured by the remainder of the statute, id. § (a)(1)-(3). Colbert v. United States, 310 A.3d 608, 610 (D.C. 2024). This case concerns only the latter eligibility requirement, as nobody challenges the trial court’s finding that  5 Allen has satisfied the non-dangerousness requirement. To be eligible for a sentence reduction, a movant must demonstrate “extraordinary and compelling reasons” warranting a sentence modification. The statute provides two “primary examples” of such extraordinary and compelling reasons in (a)(1)-(2), and it then provides a catch-all provision in (a)(3), covering any other extraordinary and compelling reasons, with four additional “non-exhaustive” and “illustrative” examples provided. Autrey v. United States, 264 A.3d 653, 656 (D.C. 2021). Importantly, this compassionate release statute was “modeled after” and intended to “align” with the federal compassionate release statute. Bailey, 251 A.3d at 729-30; see also Report on Bill No. 23-127 before the Committee on the Judiciary & Public Safety, Council of the District of Columbia, at 27 (Nov. 23, 2020) (Committee Report). That federal statute allows a district court to reduce a movant’s sentence if it finds that “extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a reduction” and the reduction is “consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the [United States] Sentencing Commission.” 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). As relevant here, the Sentencing Commission’s policy statement in place when the D.C. Council enacted the District’s statute listed examples of “extraordinary and compelling reasons” that roughly align with the examples in D.C. Code § 24-403.04(a)—serious medical conditions, advanced age plus time served, family circumstances, and any additional “extraordinary and compelling reason other than,  6 or in combination with,” those just listed. See U.S. Sent’g Guidelines Manual § 1B1.13 cmt. n.1(A)-(D) (2018). 1 Congress also instructed the Commission that, in formulating the policy statements guiding compassionate release decisions, “[r]ehabilitation of the defendant alone shall not be considered an extraordinary and compelling reason” for release. 28 U.S.C. § 994(t) (emphasis added). The District’s statute is more favorable to movants than its federal counterpart in several ways. For one, the District’s statute reduces the age and length of incarceration requirements for categorical eligibility from seventy years old and thirty years served, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(ii), to sixty years old and twenty years served, D.C. Code § 24-403.04(a)(2). It also makes sentence reductions mandatory rather than discretionary if the movant shows he is non-dangerous and eligible for a reduction. Compare 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) (“the court . . . may reduce the term of imprisonment”), with D.C. Code § 24-403.04(a) (“the court shall modify a term of imprisonment”). In addition, our statute directs trial courts to consider rehabilitation as part of the non-dangerousness inquiry, whereas the federal analogue 1 The Commission amended the Guidelines in 2023, and “specifically rejected a requirement that ‘other reasons’ be similar in nature and consequence to the specified reasons” and stated instead that they “need be similar only in gravity.” See U.S. Sent’g Comm’n, Amendments to the Sentencing Guidelines, Policy Statements, Official Commentary, and Statutory Index at 10 (effective Nov. 1, 2023), https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/amendment-process/official- text-amendments/202305_Amendments.pdf; https://perma.cc/YXD8-UHM3.  7 does not contain that express command. And unlike the federal scheme, our statute does not say that “[r]ehabilitation of the defendant alone” cannot amount to an extraordinary and compelling reason warranting a sentence reduction. Compare 28 U.S.C. § 994(t) with D.C. Code § 24-403.04(a)(3). That is just to give the reader some statutory background before we briefly describe the facts relevant here. We will return to the bulk of that background in our legal analysis below. II. Factual and Procedural Background After serving more than twenty years of his forty-five-year sentence, Allen asked that he be released under the District’s compassionate release statute in 2023. Allen acknowledged that he did not satisfy either of the statute’s categorical eligibility criteria because he did not have a terminal illness and was several years shy of sixty years old. D.C. Code § 24-403.04(a)(1)-(2); see Autrey, 264 A.3d at 656. Instead, he relied on the catch-all provision, § 24-403.04(a)(3). He argued that his age (fifty-six at the time), his length of incarceration, his medical conditions, his vulnerability to COVID-19, and his remarkable degree of rehabilitation combined to form “[o]ther extraordinary and compelling reasons” that warranted his release under the catch-all provision. D.C. Code § 24-403.04(a)(3).  8 To substantiate his extensive rehabilitation, Allen submitted letters from eight men who attested that he often resolved conflicts and served as a mentor in prison, with one of them referring to him as a “shining beacon of hope for redemption.” In addition, Allen’s supervisor at the National Association for the Advancement of Returning Citizens described his involvement with the organization and wrote that Allen’s mentorship “had such an impact on some of our participants that they gave up the street life.” “In my unwavering opinion,” that supervisor continued, “I strongly believe that without Mr. Allen’s involvement with our youth mentorship program, and sharing his inspiring story of redemption and reform, there would be a lot more of our youth incarcerated or deceased.” Allen’s supervisor further predicted that Allen “would be a great asset to our organization,” and indicated the organization would employ him as an “Outreach Specialist” if he were released. Allen presented this as “evidence both of his lack of dangerousness and of the extraordinary and compelling circumstances justifying release.” The trial court held a hearing where Allen expressed remorse for the murder he committed in 2003, recounted his experiences in federal prison, and described his rehabilitation and how he hoped he could use it to help young men in his community. Allen also submitted an affidavit from a registered nurse, who opined that he had seven comorbidities that put him at “more than an above average risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes.” The court then heard from a former inmate and a friend of  9 Allen’s who spoke about the violent conditions in prison to provide context for Allen’s infractions for possessing a weapon while imprisoned. Finally, the court considered victim-impact statements from the brother, mother, and daughter of the murder victim, all of whom opposed Allen’s release. The trial court denied Allen’s compassionate release motion in a written order. Although the court found that Allen was no longer dangerous, it concluded that he failed to demonstrate extraordinary and compelling reasons that would render him eligible for release. On eligibility, the court first found that Allen failed to show an acute vulnerability to severe illness from COVID-19. Then, the court seemed to disagree with Allen’s argument that his age and time served should be considered together with other factors for eligibility purposes, reasoning that the statute “sets an explicit age limit for eligibility” at sixty. Finally, the court declined to consider Allen’s rehabilitation in its eligibility analysis, concluding that rehabilitation is relevant only “to the question of dangerousness.” Allen now appeals. III. Analysis This appeal requires us to address the scope of the eligibility catch-all provision in the District’s compassionate release statute. Specifically, we must decide: (a) whether a trial court can consider evidence of rehabilitation when assessing a movant’s eligibility under the catch-all; and (b) whether it must engage  10 in a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis when assessing the factors a movant cites to support their request for release. After examining the District’s statute and the federal scheme on which it was modeled, we hold (1) that trial courts are allowed to consider a movant’s rehabilitation when assessing their eligibility under the catch- all provision in D.C. Code § 24-403.04(a)(3); and (2) that they must weigh all the relevant factors collectively and in their totality, rather than piecemeal. We review questions of statutory interpretation de novo. Aboye v. United States, 121 A.3d 1245, 1249 (D.C. 2015). Statutory interpretation is “a holistic endeavor” that “must account for a statute’s full text, language as well as punctuation, structure, and subject matter.” Autrey, 264 A.3d at 656 n.5 (quoting Grayson v. AT&T Corp., 15 A.3d 219, 238 (D.C. 2011) (en banc)). “We begin with the plain language of the statute, but if we find ambiguity, ‘our task is to search for an interpretation that makes sense of the statute and related laws as a whole,’” turning to legislative history where appropriate “to ensure that our interpretation is consistent with legislative intent.” Aboye, 121 A.3d at 1249 (quoting Richardson v. United States, 927 A.2d 1137, 1139 (D.C. 2007)). A. Rehabilitation evidence can contribute to a movant’s eligibility We first address whether the trial court erred in holding it could not consider Allen’s rehabilitation in prison when evaluating whether he was eligible for release  11 under the catch-all provision in D.C. Code § 24-403.04(a)(3). Both parties agree that trial courts must consider a movant’s rehabilitation when evaluating their present or future dangerousness, as the statute is quite clear about that. Id. § 24-403.04(a). Allen argues that rehabilitation evidence can also be relevant to the eligibility inquiry, while the government counters that courts are prohibited from considering rehabilitation in that eligibility inquiry and can consider it only in assessing dangerousness. Based on the text, structure, and purpose of the compassionate release statute, Allen has the better of the argument. We begin by examining the text and purpose of the statute, then we consider the government’s counter that only health-related concerns—and the dissent’s counter that only “compassion-based” concerns, post at 57—can be extraordinary and compelling. We then close by considering the remainder of the arguments for precluding consideration of rehabilitation evidence in the eligibility analysis. 1. The plain text and purpose of the statute support Allen’s reading Start with the text. The phrase “extraordinary and compelling reasons” sets the standard for when a movant is eligible for release. That is a broad and indeterminate standard that is not susceptible to any obvious categorical narrowing, beyond that either ordinary or uncompelling reasons will not satisfy it. Such “general words” are “to be accorded their full and fair scope” and are “not to be arbitrarily  12 limited.” See Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 101 (2012). Nothing in the statute expressly or implicitly limits what a trial court can consider when deciding what reasons count as extraordinary and compelling. Because there is no textual basis to categorically exclude rehabilitation evidence from the eligibility inquiry, that evidence would seem to be relevant to the inquiry so long as it is indeed “extraordinary and compelling” in nature, either standing alone or in combination with other factors. Cf. Fernandez v. United States, 608 U.S. ----, 146 S. Ct. 1292, 1302 (2026) (noting that the federal statute’s analogous “extraordinary and compelling reasons” standard is “demanding”). While the statute further provides six examples of the types of circumstances that satisfy the “extraordinary and compelling” standard, we have explained that those examples are “illustrative” and “non-exhaustive.” Autrey, 264 A.3d at 656. The purpose behind the catch-all standard supports this plain reading: It was meant to be “flexible” and to afford trial courts “‘discretion to review the compelling facts of a case’ rather than bind them with rigid criteria.” Id. (quoting Page v. United States, 254 A.3d 1129, 1130 (D.C. 2021)). In recognizing this flexibility, we have held that certain factors not listed in the statutory examples are nonetheless relevant to the eligibility standard. See Page, 254 A.3d at 1130 (movant’s “likelihood of infection” was relevant because the trial court could consider “any reasonable factor that directly impacts . . . whether an applicant is ‘at risk of severe illness or death  13 from COVID-19’”); Autrey, 264 A.3d at 658 (adding “emerging research about ‘long COVID,’” “the availability of booster shots,” and “the rise of new virus variants” to the list of relevant factors, among others); see also Colbert, 310 A.3d at 612 n.1 (“[T]he District’s trial courts have generally concluded that[,] under the catchall provision, a D.C. prisoner can demonstrate eligibility for compassionate release by showing that they are at risk for severe illness from COVID-19, regardless of age or time served.” (citation omitted)). The government and our dissenting colleague offer several counterpoints to this straightforward understanding of the statutory text and its underlying purpose, and we turn to those now. 2. Extraordinary and compelling reasons are not limited to health-related concerns The government counters that the catch-all provision renders only “health- related reasons” as potentially extraordinary and compelling, and indeed all three of the cases just cited above concerned such health-related reasons. Cf. Burke v. Groover, Christie & Merritt, P.C., 26 A.3d 292, 302 n.8 (D.C. 2011) (discussing the noscitur a sociis canon, or the idea that “a word or phrase is known by the company it keeps”). We see three serious shortcomings with that view, besides the fact that no such limitation can be found in the statutory text itself: (1) some of the illustrative examples of extraordinary and compelling reasons in the catch-all provision are not  14 directly tied to health-related concerns; (2) even if all of the illustrative examples related to health in some way, there is no indication that the Council meant to set that as an implied limit on the broad “extraordinary and compelling reasons” standard; and (3) courts have long interpreted an identical phrase in the federal statute to encompass rehabilitation evidence, and when the Council enacted the D.C. statute “in the image of the federal statute,” Committee Report at 27, it gave no indication that it intended to so dramatically depart from that approach. First, some of the illustrative examples of extraordinary and compelling reasons have no direct connection to health-related concerns. Subsection 24-403.04(a)(3)(C), for instance, envisions that a movant’s release might be warranted to let them care for their children when the children’s primary caretaker has died or become incapacitated. There is no requirement that the children be in poor health, nor is there any requirement that the children lack any alternative substitute caretaker or be at risk of maltreatment before a movant might be released under this provision.2 The provision instead seems predicated on the value of having 2 There is also no requirement that the caretaker be in poor health, as they might be incapacitated via imprisonment, for example. Our dissenting colleague counters that there is “no reasonable reading of ‘incapacitation’ in this context” that includes “incarceration,” given that it is “paired with ‘death.’” Post at 57. We disagree. The plain statutory concern of (a)(3)(C) is that the movant’s children have lost their caregiver, and the movant/parent could step into their shoes to provide that  15 parents raise their own children, and on keeping families together, rather than on any health-based concern. Similarly, § 24-403.04(a)(2) requires the movant to have served “at least 20 years in prison” and be “60 years of age or older,” but it does not require that the defendant have any health issues or comorbidities that leave them particularly susceptible to COVID-19. This provision thus seems to be at least partially grounded in the view that movants of advanced age who have served decades in prison have often simply aged out of crime, regardless of whether they have any particular health concerns. While being sixty years of age could arguably be viewed as a proxy for one’s health or vulnerability to COVID-19, it would be odd to read subsection (a)(2) in that manner, where subsection (a)(3)(B) is likewise limited to those who are sixty years of age or older, but with express requirements that they suffer from serious medical conditions or comorbidities that leave them acutely vulnerable to COVID-19 (albeit with a lesser “time served” requirement). The omission of any care if released. One who is imprisoned is just as incapable of caring for their children as one who is medically incapacitated, so there is no functional reason why (a)(3)(C) would distinguish between the two. Also, the most natural meaning of the word “incapacitation” includes those who are imprisoned, particularly in the context of whether they are incapacitated from acting as a caretaker. See Rosales-Mireles v. United States, 585 U.S. 129, 132-33 (2018) (describing “incapacitation” as one of the principal goals of imprisonment); United States v. Edwards, 430 A.2d 1321, 1333 (D.C. 1981) (noting that “incapacitat[ion]” is “one of the functions of imprisonment”).  16 similar health-related criteria in § 24-403.04(a)(2) strongly suggests that health concerns were not the principal, and certainly not the sole, driving force of that provision. Second, and more importantly, even if all of the illustrative examples were health related, that would be no good reason to woodenly impose “health- relatedness” as an implicit limitation on what might qualify as extraordinary and compelling circumstances. See United States v. Feeney, 100 F.4th 841, 848 (7th Cir. 2024) (presuming that “general words” are “to be accorded their full and fair scope” and should not be “arbitrarily limited” (quoting Scalia & Garner, supra, at 101)); United States v. Weiss, 52 F.4th 546, 552 (3d Cir. 2022) (explaining that the “general-terms canon” “holds that general terms should be interpreted generally”). The government and our dissenting colleague both invoke the noscitur a sociis and ejusdem generis interpretive canons as justifying their more restrictive readings of the statute. But those canons apply only when necessary to resolve statutory ambiguity—they do not create ambiguity where there is none. See Ali v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 552 U.S. 214, 227 (2008) (rejecting the invocation of these canons as an “attempt to create ambiguity where the statute’s text and structure suggest none”); Russell Motor Car Co. v. United States, 261 U.S. 514, 520 (1923) (explaining that noscitur a sociis is a “useful rule of construction, where words are of obscure or doubtful meaning, and then, but only then, its aid may be sought to remove the  17 obscurity or doubt by reference to the associated words”); Lucas v. United States, 305 A.3d 774, 777-78 (D.C. 2023) (declining to apply noscitur a sociis where “a plain-meaning approach resolve[d] the meaning of statutory language”). And there simply is no obscurity in the phrase “extraordinary and compelling reasons”—it permits the consideration of factors as broad as the term itself would suggest, and delimits only the gravity of reasons that merit release, not their type. 3 To illustrate the point, say your spouse sends you to the grocery store to pick up “whatever groceries we need for the week, including lettuce, tomatoes, avocados, 3 Another problem with applying these interpretive canons to the (a)(3) catch- all provision is that they require an “obvious and readily identifiable” category to emerge from the more specific terms before they can limit the general terms, and there is no such category here. Scalia & Garner, supra, at 199; see also Ali, 552 U.S. at 225 (noting that “no relevant common attribute immediately appears” to connect the specific terms so that they could not be read to limit the broader term (emphasis added)). To illustrate the point, just note our dissenting colleague’s varying formulations of what he discerns the limiting category to be. At times, he describes it as “health and welfare concerns,” post at 57, and once he adds “welfare” into the mix it is hard to see how that is any limitation on permissible considerations at all. We fail to see how Allen’s ability to help at-risk youth, which is part of his case for extraordinary rehabilitation, does not relate to his community’s “welfare.” At other points, our colleague identifies the relevant category of permissible considerations as “factors relating to age, infirmity, and family welfare or factors that are similar in kind”—query why community welfare is not similar in kind to family welfare— “matters of mortality and infirmity,” “compassion-based” concerns, or “considerations of age, health, and welfare.” Post at 38, 53, 57, 65. There is no obvious and readily identifiable category that the illustrative examples in § 24-403.04(a) fit neatly within, as our colleague’s shifting attempts to articulate one demonstrates.  18 cucumbers, berries, and apples.” While all of the examples provided are of produce, it would be quite bizarre to interpret your spouse’s directive as limiting you to purchasing produce only. The directive is far broader than that and extends to all the groceries your family needs, even though the particular examples your spouse gave all happen to be produce. You would naturally understand your spouse to be relying on your discretion and judgment to determine what groceries you need for the week—get milk and eggs if you think you need them, even though they are not produce—while noting several items that are clear necessities and happen to be produce. 4 So too here. Our compassionate release statute gives a sweeping directive to trial courts that all “extraordinary and compelling reasons” can render one eligible for release. Even if (counterfactually) all of the illustrative examples were health related or could be wedged into some broader category that the text does not identify, that would be little reason to treat that as a categorical limitation on what is plainly a capacious statutory directive. 4 Your spouse’s only directives are to stick to (1) groceries that are (2) needed. So if you come home with a new car or a pet turtle, then your spouse might be rightly aggrieved that those are not groceries, even if you arguably need them. And if you come home with a gallon jar of pickles despite already having two in the house, your spouse might rightly complain that those were not needed, even though pickles are groceries. The statutory limitation to reasons that are both (1) extraordinary and (2) compelling functions similarly. Those are real and substantive constraints on what reasons might make one eligible for release, but they should not be artificially narrowed to any unstated category even if the illustrative examples all fit into one.  19 Third, courts have consistently held that, under the analogous federal statute, rehabilitation “may be considered as one factor among several under” the statute’s catch-all provision, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). United States v. Davis, 99 F.4th 647, 659 (4th Cir. 2024) (district court abused its discretion by overlooking movant’s evidence of rehabilitation in eligibility analysis); see also Fernandez, 146 S. Ct. at 1303 (“Congress has permitted the Sentencing Commission to treat a defendant’s rehabilitation as a relevant consideration in granting compassionate release.”); United States v. Duluc-Méndez, 156 F.4th 55, 61 (1st Cir. 2025) (while 28 U.S.C. § 994(t) indicates that rehabilitation alone is not an extraordinary and compelling reason for release, that limit “does not stop a defendant from combining rehabilitation with other factors to establish an extraordinary and compelling reason”). Courts are of the uniform view that a movant’s rehabilitation is a relevant factor in evaluating whether “extraordinary and compelling reasons” warrant a sentence reduction under the federal statute. See, e.g., United States v. Johnson, 619 F. Supp. 3d 81, 98 (D.D.C. 2022) (movant’s “rehabilitation while incarcerated” was “extremely impressive” and “an important factor” in the eligibility analysis); United States v. Vargas, 502 F. Supp. 3d 820, 829 (S.D.N.Y. 2020) (“[W]here the [d]efendant’s rehabilitation appears to be dramatic, the Court would be remiss to ignore it entirely” in assessing whether extraordinary and compelling reasons justified release). If the Council intended to depart from that uniform authority, we  20 expect they would have said so clearly. See Thomas v. United States, 650 A.2d 183, 186 (D.C. 1994) (noting the presumption that, “when the Council enacts, in substance, some existing federal statute, it does so, absent an indication to the contrary, together with any known and settled interpretations of the provisions of that statute”). These interpretations of the federal statute are “highly persuasive” because the District’s compassionate release statute was “modeled after” the federal analogue and was intended to “‘align’ with the use of federal compassionate release following the First Step Act of 2018.” Bailey, 251 A.3d at 729-30 (citations omitted). Case law discussing factors that can be considered “extraordinary and compelling” in the federal scheme is especially persuasive given that our statute is silent on whether rehabilitation is relevant to that inquiry. In Bailey, we encountered a similar silence in our statute regarding the movant’s burden of proof and proceeded to adopt the “default rule” that applied uniformly in federal court. See id. at 729 (adopting the preponderance standard and noting that the Council’s “failure to expressly deviate from this default rule here is strong reason to adhere to it”). Here, the default rule in federal court is that rehabilitation evidence can be considered when determining if a movant is eligible for compassionate release. Our statute gives no indication that the Council intended to depart from that uniform authority, or to give the eligibility standard in the D.C. compassionate release statute a narrower scope than its federal  21 counterpart. As noted, our statute contains no textual limit on factors considered relevant to that standard, besides the requirement that they be “extraordinary and compelling.” See Concepcion v. United States, 597 U.S. 481, 497 (2022) (“‘Drawing meaning from silence is particularly inappropriate’ in the sentencing context.” (quoting Kimbrough v. United States, 552 U.S. 85, 103 (2007))). 3. There is no other good reason to prohibit consideration of rehabilitation in the eligibility calculus The government and our dissenting colleague offer a host of additional arguments for why rehabilitation is not a permissible consideration in the eligibility calculus, regardless of whether the catch-all provision is limited to health-related concerns. None of them is persuasive. First, both the government and our dissenting colleague argue that we should presume the Council did not want trial courts to consider rehabilitation evidence in the eligibility inquiry because the word “rehabilitation” appears only once in the compassionate release statute—when circumscribing the dangerousness inquiry. To permit trial courts to consider rehabilitation in both inquiries would run contrary to the anti-surplusage canon, in their views, because it would render the reference to rehabilitation in the statute’s opening subsection meaningless. Post at 49-50 & n.3.  22 We disagree. For starters, the anti-surplusage canon guards against interpretations that render statutory language inoperative; it says nothing about whether the same evidence may bear on more than one statutory inquiry. Under our reading, every word in the statute continues to do meaningful work. The word “rehabilitation” in the opening subsection mandates its consideration in the dangerousness inquiry, presumably to avoid trial courts getting overly focused on the heinousness of the movant’s underlying offense(s) and ignoring strong evidence of their rehabilitation in that inquiry. So the anti-surplusage critique is an easy one to answer: if you omit the word rehabilitation from the statute’s opening section, it would no longer seem to be a mandatory consideration in the dangerousness inquiry. Leaving it in does that work. Contrary to the government’s and our colleague’s related arguments about the Council’s presumed intent, including a term in one provision does not imply any intent to exclude it from the scope of another when the provisions are as structurally dissimilar as they are here. See City of Columbus v. Ours Garage & Wrecker Serv., Inc., 536 U.S. 424, 435-36 (2002) (presumption of legislative intent from presence and absence of a phrase “grows weaker with each difference in the formulation of the provisions”). The statute’s dangerousness subsection directs trial courts to consider an exhaustive and bounded list of factors, to wit, the factors in 18 U.S.C. §§ 3142(g) and 3553(a) plus rehabilitation. D.C. Code § 24-403.04(a); see also  23 Bailey, 251 A.3d at 731-32 (noting the “limited” nature of that inquiry). In stark contrast, the subsections that follow list no factors whatsoever that courts must or should consider when assessing eligibility; they simply provide six examples of circumstances that raise “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for release. D.C. Code § 24-403.04(a)(1)-(3). While our dissenting colleague posits that both halves of the statute require consideration of “certain factors,” post at 48, that is contrary to the statutory text—there is not a single factor that the statute directs trial courts to consider when assessing eligibility. Instead, the six illustrations of extraordinary and compelling reasons in § 24-403.04(a)(1)-(3) are just that—mere illustrations, with no list of any particular factors that should or must be considered by trial courts. That is, determining a movant’s eligibility involves a “flexible” standard with six “illustrative examples” and no textual limit on relevant factors. Autrey, 264 A.3d at 656. Pulling back from interpretive canons, it makes sense that rehabilitation would factor into both inquiries. Rehabilitation takes many forms. Some of those forms speak to whether a movant remains dangerous, while others can be extraordinary and compelling reasons supporting their release (with plenty of overlap between the two). See, e.g., Vargas, 502 F. Supp. 3d at 829-31 (noting rehabilitation as “one of multiple factors warranting compassionate release” and concluding it was a  24 “critical” factor in finding movant “likely does not pose a danger to the public”). 5 Some forms of rehabilitation—like alleviating aggression issues or overcoming substance abuse problems that often lead to crime—speak primarily to a movant’s lack of future dangerousness. Other forms of rehabilitation, like a movant’s exceptional ability to positively impact lives in his community, might say little about their dangerousness but nonetheless be an extraordinary and compelling factor favoring release. This case presents a prime example of the latter type of rehabilitation. Allen’s exemplary record of mentoring at-risk youths is not particularly relevant to his own dangerousness; a great mentor might at the same time be quite dangerous. But if, as the evidence suggests, Allen could steer innumerable youths away from a life of crime and keep them out of the morgue if he is released, that sure sounds like an “extraordinary and compelling reason” favoring his release. There is no sound reason why the Council would have wanted 5 The government says we should “not imply an intent to include rehabilitation in the extraordinary-and-compelling-reasons analysis.” But we need not discern any specific intent on the