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Justice Department, six months later, responds to Senators’ inquiry about handling FSA pipeline cases

By Douglas Berman
April 26, 2011

Thanks to a very helpful reader, I have gotten a copy (and provide for downloading below) of a response from the Justice Department to the letter, dated November 17, 2010, from Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator Dick Durbin to Attorney General Eric Holder (blogged here) which urged the Justice Department to “apply [the Fair Sentencing Act’s] modified mandatory minimums to all defendants who have not yet been sentenced, including those whose conduct predates the legislation’s enactment.”  

The response says little more than what the DOJ lawyers have been saying in courts around the country, namely that the Fair Sentencing Act’s silence about implementation dates means that the general Savings Statute entails that only conduct after the effective date of the FSA gets the benefit of the new mandatory minimums.  Nevertheless, the letter is an interesting read, especially because it includes as attachments the internal memos sent from Main Justice to all prosecutors about how they should respond to the enactment of the FSA in August 2010 and to the promulgation of revised crack guidelines in November 2011.

Download FSA_Holder_letter_response_042511

Some posts on this FSA issue: