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Long, thoughtful (and wrong?) new opinion on FSA application to pending cases

By Douglas A. Berman

As regular readers may recall, aided by a helpful lawyer in NYC litigating a Fair Sentencing Act issue for a defendant awaiting initial sentencing in a multi-defendant case, I had the opportunity and honor to serve as an amicus in an SDNY case dealing with the issue of applying the FSA's provisions to cases in the pipeline that have not yet been sentenced. Yesterday, Judge Kenneth Karas issued a 58-page opinion in US v. Santana, No. 09-CR-1022 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 20, 2011) (available for download below), which concludes this way: The Court recognizes that over the course of the last two decades there has been growing belief among practitioners, courts, commentators, and many others that the 100-to-1 ratio that Congress hastily adopted in 1986 was based on insufficient facts and has resulted in severe sentences that have been disproportionately imposed on certain groups of individuals...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 21, 2011 (boomark / email).