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US Sentencing Commission votes to promulgate notable amendments to the US Sentencing Guidelines

By Douglas Berman

At a public hearing this afternoon, the US Sentencing Commission voted unanimously to advance a significant set of amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines.  One major amendment is focused on guideline “simplification” by eliminating lots of  “departures” from the guideline manual (which have functionally withered since Booker made the guidelines advisory 20 years ago).  Additional amendments focused on supervised release, drug offenses, firearm offenses and a few circuit conflicts. 

There are lots of intricacies here, but the simplification and supervised release amendments will, at least indirectly, impact almost every federal sentencing.  And I believe the drug and firearm amendments could impact a considerabe number of cases.  (The USSC also voted to conduct a retroactivity impact analysis for one part of the drug guideline reform and for the circuit conflict reforms.)  Because Congress gets six months to review the Commission’s proposed amendments, these changes do not become effective until November 1, 2025 (assuming Congress does not intervene, which it has done only once over 30+ years of guideline amendments).   

When the USSC formally announces all the details of these amendments, I will update this post.   

UPDATE:  Here is the USSC’s press release providing an efficient accounting of its notable work today:

Today, the bipartisan United States Sentencing Commission voted unanimously to publish amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines for the amendment cycle ending May 1, 2025.  These amendments update a range of guidelines provisions, including those related to supervised release, drug trafficking, and firearms offenses. “The policies issued today are bipartisan, common-sense ideas that will protect public safety, reduce recidivism, and facilitate rehabilitation,” said Judge Carlton W. Reeves, Chair of the Commission. (Watch the public meeting.)

Today’s amendments will improve federal sentencing by:

  • encouraging courts to take an individualized approach to the imposition and management of supervised release;
  • addressing the harms of “fake pills” containing fentanyl while ensuring sentences better reflect a defendant’s function in drug trafficking;
  • providing appropriate penalties for firearms offenses that involve machinegun conversion devices;
  • simplifying the “three-step” approach that courts currently use when applying the guidelines; and
  • promoting consistent guideline application by resolving certain circuit conflicts.

The amendments issued by the Commission today will be posted HERE and will be delivered to Congress by May 1, 2025. If Congress does not act to disapprove the changes, they will go into effect on November 1, 2025.

The linked “Amendments to the Sentencing Guidelines (Preliminary)” runs 686 pages(!), though I think “only” the first 80 or so pages deal with the bulk of the substantive amendment while the other 600 set forth the burial right for departures throughout the guideline manual.