Skip to main content

CONGRESSWOMAN SHEILA JACKSON LEE APPLAUDS VOTE BY U.S. SENTENCING COMMISSION TO ALLOW RETROACTIVE REDUCTION IN DRUG TRAFFICKING SENTENCES

July 21, 2014

Jackson Lee: “The Sentencing Commission’s vote is a positive step forward as it makes federal drug sentencing fairer for all, saves the taxpayers millions of dollars annually, and reaffirms the premise that the men and women who have paid their debt to society are worthy of a second chance to redeem their lives and contribute to their communities.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, released the following statement today after the U.S. Sentencing Commission unanimously voted to make retroactive the amended guidelines adopted in February lowering the base offense levels in the Drug Quantity Table across drug types, which may mean lower sentences for most drug offenders:

"Today's unanimous vote of the U.S. Sentencing Commission to apply retroactively the reduction in the sentencing guideline levels applicable to most federal drug trafficking offenders retroactively is welcome news to the families and loved ones of the estimated 46,290 persons eligible to have their cases reviewed by a judge to determine if their sentence should be reduced by on average of 25 months, or as much as 18.8 percent.

"The United States incarcerates nearly 25 percent of the world's inmates, even though it only has 5 percent of the world's population. Thirty years ago, there were less than 30,000 inmates in the federal system; today, there are nearly 216,000, an increase of 800 percent. This over-crowding of our federal prison system – at an annual cost of about $6.5 billion – is the direct and proximate result of the proliferation of offenses carrying mandatory-minimums and the discriminatory 100-1 disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences in federal law.

"African Americans and Hispanics comprise more than 6 in 10 federal inmates incarcerated for drug offenses. And African American offenders receive sentences that are 10 percent longer than white offenders for the same crimes and are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

"Today's announcement by the U.S. Sentencing Commission is particularly gratifying to those of us who worked tirelessly over the last two decades to restore balance and justice to federal drug sentencing policy. In 2005, I introduced the "No More Tulias Act of 2005" (H.R. 2620) in response to the infamous drug task force scandal in Tulia, Texas that occurred six years earlier, during which 15 percent of the town's African American population was arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to decades in prison based on the uncorroborated testimony of a federally funded undercover officer with a record of racial impropriety.

"Later, in 2007, I introduced the "Drug Sentencing Reform and Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act of 2007" (H.R. 4545), bipartisan legislation eliminating the unjust and discriminatory 100 to 1 disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences in federal law. Companion legislation in the Senate was introduced by then Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware (S. 1711). Three years later, this effort bore fruit when the Congress passed and President Obama signed into law the "Fair Sentencing Act of 2010" (P.L. 111-220), which finally ended the 100:1 ratio that had resulted in unconscionable racial disparities in the average length of sentences for comparable offenses.

"But a large gap remained in the justice provided by this landmark legislation: its provisions were not retroactive. That gap has been filled today by the unanimous vote of the Sentencing Commission. Beginning in November of this year, all federal inmates sentenced under the old regime are to be afforded the opportunity to have their sentences reconsidered under the provisions of current law, and those eligible for release may be reunited with their families and loved ones as early as November 2015.

"The vote today by the Sentencing Commission is a giant step in the right direction as it makes federal drug sentencing policy and practice fairer for all, helps save the taxpayers millions of dollars annually, and reaffirms the premise that the men and women who have paid their debt to society are worthy of a second chance to redeem their lives and contribute to their communities."

###

Congresswoman Jackson Lee is a Democrat from Texas's 18th Congressional District. She is a senior member of the House Committees on Judiciary and Homeland Security and is Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security