Crack Cocaine Sentencing

Last August President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act.  The Act reduced the mandatory minimum penalties for crack cocaine trafficking, and eliminated the mandatory minimum sentence for crack cocaine possession.  The Act also raised the quantity required, involved with manufacturing or trafficking crack cocaine, to initiate the minimum imprisonment terms for 5 and 10 years.  Finally, the Act directed the U.S. Sentencing Commission to review and amend federal sentencing guidelines in order to better account for offender culpability regarding aggravating and mitigating circumstances in drug trafficking. 

On April 6^th the Sentencing Commission released its amendments covering the above-mentioned sentencing guidelines.  Now, the guidelines will focus on offender culpability rather than drug quantity.   The change is estimated to reduce sentences of crack cocaine offenders and reduce the cost of incarceration of such offenders. 

Not until June 1 will the Commission consider whether these changes will apply retroactively (past conduct for possible offenses).  The Fair Sentencing Act itself is silent on the retroactivity of its implication, thus implying that the Act only applies to offenses which occurred on or after the date of enactment.