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US Sentencing Commission report on mandatory minimums coming in Fall 2011

By Douglas A. Berman

As noted in this prior post, in October 2009, Congress directed the US Sentencing Commission to undertake a comprehensive review of mandatory minimum sentencing penalties and to report its findings and recommendations to Congress within a year.  I learned today at the awesome ABA event that the USSC got an extension on its due date and that we now can/should not expect to see the USSC's big mandatory minimum report until probably October 2011.  Oh well. I suspect the report will be worth the wait, and today I urged members of the USSC to release data about the application of mandatory minimums provisions ASAP.  Though I am somewhat disappointed we all now have to wait another year to get the USSC's wisdom on the wisdom of mandatory minimum sentencing provisions in the post-Booker world, I am somewhat hopeful that we might get some data from the USSC on this front sooner rather than later.continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on November 05, 2010 (boomark / email).