The Sentencing Project urges retroactivity of USSC crack amendment
As detailed here, the Sentencing Project “has submitted a letter to the United States Sentencing Commission urging it to apply retroactively a crack cocaine sentencing amendment passed this May to defendants previously sentenced for a crack offense.” The full text of the lengthy letter can be accessed at this link, and here is a snippet:
The Commission has opted to make retroactive every amendment to a drug sentence that could be formulaically applied, i.e., in cases where the district court could calculate the new sentencing range using a simple mathematical equation. The Commission has followed the same pattern since it began requesting public comment in 2000…. [The crack amendment] fits squarely in the category of amendments that have been made retroactive. It can be easily applied by district courts in a formulaic manner. …
To diverge from its paradigm in this particular instance would be particularly inappropriate given the racial implications of [the crack amendment]. Failing to make the amendment retroactive would perpetuate the already disproportionate effect of the severity of the Guidelines on African American defendants and poor urban neighborhoods.
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