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US Sentencing Commission forecasts impact of making new crack guidelines retroactive

By Douglas A. Berman

I just notice this important new document posted on the US Sentencing Commission's website, which is a USSC memorandum titled "Analysis of the Impact of Amendment to the Statutory Penalties for Crack Cocaine Offenses Made by the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 and Corresponding Proposed Permanent Guideline Amendment if the Guideline Amendment Were Applied Retroactively."  The details of this 60+ page memo are as intricate as the title, though the basic story concerns how many offenders sentenced under the old 100-1 crack guidelines (and the amended version applicable from 2007 to 2010) would benefit from retroactive application of the new 18-1 crack guidelines that the passage of the Fair Sentencing Act produced. The detailed analysis in this memo defies simplistic summary, especially because lots of assumptions and alternative ideas are built into the crack re-sentencing number-crunching...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on February 02, 2011 (boomark / email).