Edward Dorsey, SR., Petitioner v. United States (567 U.S. 260)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 21, 2012 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 567 U.S. 260 · 132 S. Ct. 2321
- Decided
- June 21, 2012
- Term
- October Term 2011
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court. Federal statutes impose mandatory minimum prison sentences upon those convicted of federal drug crimes. These statutes typically base the length of a minimum prison term upon the kind and amount of the drug involved. Until 2010, the relevant statute imposed upon an offender who dealt in powder cocaine the same sentence it imposed upon an offender who dealt in one one-hundredth that amount of crack cocaine. It imposed, for example, the same 5-year minimum term upon (1) an offender convicted of possessing with intent to distribute 500 grams of powder cocaine as upon (2) an offender convicted of possessing with intent to distribute 5 grams of crack. In 2010, Congress enacted a new statute reducing the crack-to-powder cocaine disparity from 100-to-l to 18-to-l. Fair Sentencing Act, 124 Stat. 2372. The new statute took effect on August 3, 2010. The question here is whether the Act’s more lenient penalty provisions apply to offenders who committed a crack cocaine crime before August 3, 2010, but were not sentenced until after August 3. We hold that the new, more lenient mandatory minimum provisions do apply to those pre-Act offenders. I—I The underlying question before us is one of congressional intent as revealed in the Fair Sentencing Act’s language, structure, and basic objectives. Did Congress intend the Act’s more lenient…
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