The United States Sentencing Commission voted unanimously yesterday that sentencing guidelines changes that will reduce the sentencing ranges applicable to drug offenses will be retroactive and therefore applicable to defendants who have already been convicted and have been serving their sentences. Generally, the changes in the sentencing guidelines will reduce sentences in federal drug crimes about 2 1/2 to 3 years. Between 40,000 and 50,000 current federal inmates stand to benefit from these changes becoming retroactive. Read here the Sentencing Commission's news release.
The Sentencing Commission held a number of hearings and solicited input from all interested groups; as earlier reported the conference of federal judges supported making the guidelines amendments and their retroactivity: Federal Judges Support Retroactive Application of Sentencing Guidelines Amendments.
The changes will become effective and official on November 1, 2014, unless Congress acts affirmatively to nullify or block the changes. There is little chance of Congress acting on that (or on anything else), so the reductions are expected to become effective. Some judges, as noted by Senior District Judge Richard Kopf on his blog, Hercules and the Umpire, have already been applying the changes, a practice that will save the time and money involved dealing with the petitions for resentencing that will follow inevitably the formal and official adoption of the guidelines' amendments.
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