On June 30, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted unanimously to makes its proposed amendment to federal sentencing guidelines retroactive. The amendment implements the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which lowered the penalties for crack cocaine offenses, reducing the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and power cocaine offenses. The amendment to the guidelines will be retroactive when the proposed amendment takes effect in November, unless Congress acts to reject the amendment.
In its news release describing the decision, the commission estimated that approximately 12,000 offenders may be eligible to seek a sentence reduction, and that the average sentence reduction will be 37 months.
The news release specifies that its vote would make the proposed amendment to the federal sentencing guidelines retroactive, but would not give retroactive effect to the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 itself.
