U.S. Sentencing Commission makes cocaine rule amendments retroactive

The United States Sentencing Commission unanimously voted to allow 19,500 federal prison inmates seek reductions in their crack cocaine sentences yesterday, making roughly 3, 800 persons eligible for release within a year after Tuesday’s March 3rd effective date for the decision. (Press Release)

A CNN/AP article commenting on the Supreme Court’s decision in Kimbrough v. U.S., Monday, however, commented that that decision “didn’t present the ultimate fairness question—That Congress wrote the harsher treatment for crack into a law that sets a mandatory minimum of five years in prison form trafficking in 5 grams of crack cocaine or 100 times as much powder cocaine….. With 70% of crack defendants getting the mandatory minimum.”

Neither the Supreme Court’s decision, Monday, nor the Sentencing Commission’s recent actions affect minimum sentences, which only Congress can change.