Crack sentencing guidelines retroactive

In order to be eligible for a sentence reduction, a defendant must be serving a term of imprisonment, and the guideline range applicable to the defendant has been lowered as a result of the crack cocaine amendment. In addition, even if a defendant is eligible for a reduction, a district court judge has the final decision of whether to reduce the sentence. The Commission decided that only Parts A and C may be considered for retroactive application.

No other provisions of the Fair Sentencing Act proposed guideline amendment has been designated for retroactive application. The court shall not reduce the defendant's term of imprisonment under 18 U. Therefore, in a case in which the term of imprisonment was below the guideline range pursuant to a government motion based on a defendant's substantial assistance i. This exception to the limitation is not available for a sentence that is departure or variance based on any other reason.

The Supreme Court has concluded that proceedings under 18 U. Booker , U. Dillon v. United States , S. A sentence resulting from a binding plea agreement is not categorically disqualified from a retroactive reduction pursuant to 18 U.

See Freeman v. The Commission projects an average sentence reduction of about 37 months for eligible defendants. The Commission projects that the average sentence will drop from months 13 years 8 months to months 10 years 7 months. United States; clarifies that retroactivity is available to all offenders who were sentenced for a crack cocaine offense before the Fair Sentencing Act.

Full text of the legislation is available HERE. Today House Democrats passed the Freedom January 13, Nothing is more fundamental to American January 11, Click here to view data on the retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act amendment. Click here to view data on the retroactive application of the crack cocaine amendment. A set of tables presenting data on cases in which a motion for a reduced sentence was considered under 18 U. These cases involve retroactive application of the crack cocaine amendment to the federal sentencing guidelines implementing the Fair Sentencing Act of Amendment , as amended by Amendment