Comments for CJA News Blog

Comment on Fair Sentencing Act Guideline Made Retroactive by Rob Ruth

Rob Ruth — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:30:11 +0000

There is a distinction between the sentencing guidelines and the sentencing statutes. The Commission has recommended that the changes to the guidelines apply retroactively. The Seventh Circuit held that the changes to the statutes only apply to conduct that occurs after August 3, 2010.

The FSA changed how much crack it takes to trigger the statutory mandatory minimum. Before the FSA, 5 grams of crack meant a 5 year mandatory minimum and 50 grams meant a 10 year mandatory minimum. After the FSA, it takes 28 grams for the five year mandatory minimum and 280 grams for the 10 year mandatory minimum. The FSA also directed the Commission to lower the sentencing guidelines for crack. Under the present law in the 7th Circuit, if you received the pre-FSA mandatory minimum sentence for conduct that occurred before August 3, 2010, the FSA does not help you. If your conduct occurred before the FSA and the sentence was based on the guidelines, but not the statutory mandatory minimum, the retroactive guideline amendment recommended by the Commission will lower your guidelines and may result in a sentence reduction.

Comment on Fair Sentencing Act Guideline Made Retroactive by Carlos

Carlos — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 14:58:25 +0000

I understood the FSA to change the sentencing guidelines under which persons with “x” amount of drugs should be sentenced. Effectively lowering the amount of time they would be sentenced to jail. For example (just throwing out numbers here) prior to the FSA a person with 50 grams of crack cocaine could get 60 months, after the FSA that same person with 50 grams crack cocaine would get 36 months.

Since then there has been debate as to when these changes should apply. The 7th District saying only to crime occurring after the FSA went into effect while the 1st District holds that it apply to crimes sentenced after the FSA went into effect.

Now with this vote to give retroactive effect to the FSA, would it mean to apply the FSA changes to past crimes regardless when they were committed and/or sentenced?

My apologies for the long post.
Thank you.

Comment on Fair Sentencing Act Guideline Made Retroactive by Rob Ruth

Rob Ruth — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 22:23:33 +0000

The Fair Sentencing Act directed the Sentencing Commission to amend the advisory Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The Guidelines were amended. Now the Sentencing Commission has recommended that those amendments receive retroactive application. The Guidelines are separate from the FSA and from the statutes that create mandatory minimum sentences.

Comment on Fair Sentencing Act Guideline Made Retroactive by Carlos

Carlos — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 21:54:17 +0000

Could you please expand on your above response: “The FSA guideline was made retroactive, not the changes to the mandatory minimums.” So only parts of the FSA were made retroactive, not the whole Act?

Thank you.

Comment on Fair Sentencing Act Guideline Made Retroactive by Rob Ruth

Rob Ruth — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 15:31:03 +0000

The FSA inspired guideline was made retroactive, not the changes to the mandatory minimums. Thus, it looks like it does not help a person sentenced to the mandatory minimum before the FSA became law.

Comment on Fair Sentencing Act Guideline Made Retroactive by Susan Snipes

Susan Snipes — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 13:35:07 +0000

I would like for someone to help me understand if and how the new retroactive FSA might help my son who is currently serving a life sentence under the mandatory minimum sentencing.

Comment on New CJA Mileage Rate for 2011 by Rob Ruth

Rob Ruth — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:45:58 +0000

I have not heard anything recently about a CJA rate increase. In fact, our federal defender recently informed the panel that the lack of a federal budget might strain the current budget. The way I understand it, the Fiscal Year 2010 increase to $125 per hour was based on a projected appropriation increase. The lack of a new budget and the expectation that spending not exceed the previous year, gums up those projections. How this plays out for CJA panel attorneys remains to be seen. I have not heard anything about lowering the rate, but I have heard that without a new budget we may run out of money as the AO it tries to pay the new rate with a budget based on the old rate. The panel representatatives conference is at the end of February. I’m sure that the status of any potential rate increase will be a topic of discussion at the conference.

Comment on New CJA Mileage Rate for 2011 by Lars

Lars — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 22:17:34 +0000

Nice blog. Have you heard any rumblings as to whether we can expect a hourly rate increase for CJA cases this year? I know the judiciary was pushing to up it from $125 to $141 on non-capital cases, but in these times…

Comment on Dissecting United States v. Bell by Mike Lieberman

Mike Lieberman — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 21:37:16 +0000

On January 5, in United States v. Cox, Judge Conley will be deciding whether the FSA should apply in a case where the conduct predated enactment but plea and sentencing occurred after. It is our position that this distinguishes it from Bell. The briefs for Cox were included in the materials distributed at our last CLE. We will update everybody with the result.