On September 19th, Senators Chuck Grassley and Dick Durbin announced that they will reintroduce the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act (SRCA). As originally introduced in October 2015, the SCRA recalibrated prison sentences for certain drug offenders, narrowed mandatory minimum sentences to target violent criminals, and granted judges greater discretion at sentencing low-level drug offenders. Among other reforms to sentencing, the SRCA also makes retroactive the more lenient penalties of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, a provision that would make thousands of federal prisoners sentenced under the 100:1 powder to crack cocaine disaprity that existed before the effective date of the Act eligible to petition for a sentence reduction.
For a copy of the Senator Grassley’s press release, click here. For a link to the SCRA as previously introduced, click here. For a link to Defender Services resources on federal sentencing, click here.