Civil and Human Rights Coalition Applauds Supreme Court Ruling Applying the Fair Sentencing Act to Cases in the Pipeline
Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Hill v. United States and Dorsey v. United States. The ruling applies the new, fairer sentencing guidelines based on the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA) to individuals who had been charged with crack cocaine offenses but not yet been sentenced before the FSA was signed into law on August 3, 2010:
“Today’s decision by the Supreme Court represents a step forward for greater fairness in our criminal justice system. Congress addressed an intolerable injustice when it passed the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced but did not eliminate the massive sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine offenses. The ruling ensures that those charged under the prior, unjust law, yet sentenced after the passage of the FSA, are afforded the same, fairer treatment as individuals charged with offenses just a few days or weeks later.
As the Court noted, applying the former law ‘to the post-August 3 sentencing of pre-August 3 offenders would create disparities of a kind that Congress enacted the Sentencing Reform Act and the Fair Sentencing Act to prevent.’
The hard truth remains that any disparity in cocaine sentencing is both morally wrong and corrosive to the public trust that sustains our criminal justice system. This decision will provide some measure of relief for families who were caught in the crosshairs between the current law and the unjust former cocaine laws. While we applaud this as another step forward for these communities, the only fair and just solution is a complete elimination of these disparities.”
Wade Henderson is the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its 200-plus member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.