Retroactive Reductions Sought in Crack Penalties

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

WASHINGTON — In a proposal that could allow as many as 5,500 federal inmates to apply for reduced prison terms, the Obama administration on Wednesday backed retroactively lightening some sentences for past crack cocaine convictions.

Testifying before the United States Sentencing Commission, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. cited the Fair Sentencing Act, a 2010 law that increased the volume of crack cocaine necessary to result in a mandatory minimum prison term.

The panel, which advises federal judges on how much prison time they should hand down for particular offenses, revised its crack cocaine sentencing guidelines last fall in response to the 2010 law. Mr. Holder said that it should make those changes retroactive for certain offenders, allowing them to seek a reduction in their prison terms.

“Because of the Fair Sentencing Act, our nation is now closer to fulfilling its fundamental, and founding, promise of equal treatment under law,” Mr. Holder said. “But I am here today because I believe — and the administration’s viewpoint is — that we have more to do.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/us/02cocaine.html

[Stumbler]

1. Any chance we could reduce the sentences for MJ convictions?

No? Didn't think so... :grr:

[customerserviceguy]

2. The President always has the right to commute a sentence for a Federal crime

Why not go that way, instead of through a bureaucratic process? I can see perhaps not doing it in the cases where the inmate has been violent towards others, but I would imagine most cases would call for immediate commutation, without having to tie up lawyers and commissions.

[PSPS]

3. It's political suicide. See Willie Horton (Dukakis), Maurice Clemmons (Huckabee.)

Most drug convictions are at the state level anyway, and a president cannot pardon (or commute) such sentences.

[customerserviceguy]

4. This article was about Federal convictions only

It involved a Federal law from the drug hysteria days of the mid-1980's that imposed tougher sentences on people with crack than what their own states wanted to do to them.

I understand the "political suicide" angle, but that's why I advocate checking behavior records on any possible commutees. Besides, I don't compare crack dealers directly with the murderers released by Dukakis and Huckabee.

In any case, if one of the convicts gets an early release then does something heinous, the President will be blamed for it, anyway. A bureaucratic process that takes months won't make any difference to Faux Snooze.