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CRACK VS COCAINE SENTENCING CRACK
He further anticipated Mortara’s argument that changing the sentencing range of the amount of crack prescribed for each tier was distinct from changing the statutory penalties for each violation. Assistant Federal Public Defender Andrew Adler began by arguing that the text, history and common sense all compelled the conclusion that when Congress changed the amount of crack that qualified for Tiers 1 and 2, it necessarily “modified” the statutory penalties for Tier 3. The tenor of Tuesday’s argument left the impression that most justices were skeptical of Terry’s (and the government’s) position. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which ruled that Terry was not eligible for retroactive relief. This forced the court to reschedule the argument and appoint outside counsel, Adam Mortara, to serve as amicus in arguing to uphold the judgment of the U.S. On March 15, however, the Biden Justice Department reversed the federal government’s position and informed the court that it now believed the First Step Act did cover lower-level offenders. This interpretation left those convicted for carrying large amounts of crack eligible for resentencing but excluded those sentenced for carrying the smallest amounts. Under the Trump administration, federal prosecutors took the position that penalties for Tier 3 offenses were not “modified” by the Fair Sentencing Act and thus not eligible for retroactive resentencing under the First Step Act. Though one would think that Tier 3 offenses, previously between 0 and 5 grams, would now be those between 0 and 28 grams (defined in subparagraph (C), the provision under which Terry was sentenced), Congress did not actually change the text of the Tier 3 provision. In turn, the range of Tier 2 offenses was changed from between 5 and 50 grams to between 28 and 280 grams (defined in subparagraph (B) of the statute). Specifically, the law increased the amount of crack punished as Tier 1 offenses from 50 grams and above to 280 grams and above (defined in subparagraph (A) of 21 U.S.C.
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The First Step Act applies retroactively to people sentenced for a “covered offense,” which is defined as “a violation of a Federal criminal statute, the statutory penalties for which were modified by section 2 or 3 of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 … that was committed before August 3, 2010.” In 2010, Congress addressed the by-then iconic disparity, enacting the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the disparity to 18:1 and eliminated the mandatory five-year sentence for crack.īecause so many were previously sentenced under the discriminatory 100:1 ratio, a bipartisan Congress passed the First Step Act in 2018, making sentencing reforms retroactive and past offenders eligible for resentencing. Terry’s sentence was a result of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which created a 100:1 disparity in the punishment of crack cocaine compared to powdered cocaine.ĭecades later, that disparity is widely viewed as ineffective, unjust and a symbol of our national punitiveness in addressing “Black” drug problems. § 841(b)(1)(C), which sets forth penalties for so-called Tier 3 offenses that typically involve smaller amounts of drugs than Tiers 1 or 2. § 841(a)(1), which outlaws possessing with intent to distribute crack cocaine, and he was sentenced under 21 U.S.C. The case began in 2008, when Terry, then in his early 20s, was arrested in Florida for carrying just under 4 grams of crack cocaine. On a tangential note, the case may also be remembered (God willing) as the last telephonic Supreme Court argument of this taxing COVID-19 period. Terry also captures a feature too natural to the lawyer’s mind: a simple reading of congressional intent versus swirling and sophisticated legal reasoning pulling mightily against each other. It will resolve a circuit split, determine the scope of a decades-long push to enact sentencing reform, and perhaps speak to the history of racial discrimination and mass incarceration framed by the case. But the court’s eventual decision will likely affect hundreds of similarly situated defendants languishing behind bars. United States, about sentencing reductions for certain offenses involving crack cocaine, comes just a few months before the petitioner, Tarahrick Terry, is scheduled to be released after serving 13 years in prison. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard its last case of the term.