Supreme Court Holds Revised Sentencing Guidelines Are Binding in Crack Resentencing
The U.S. Supreme Court has limited federal inmates’ ability to get their crack cocaine sentences drastically lowered under the Sixth Amendment reach of a 2005 decision, United States v. Booker.
The court ruled in the case of Percy Dillon, an accused cocaine dealer sentenced to nearly 27 years in prison under older sentencing guidelines establishing harsher penalties for possession of crack rather than powder cocaine. After he was sent to prison, Dillon filed a pro se petition and got his sentence reduced to the minimum called for under revised guidelines, a reduction of about four years, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported earlier this year.
But Dillon argued he deserved an even lower sentence because of the Booker decision issued after his original sentencing that rendered the sentencing guidelines advisory rather than mandatory. The 2005 opinion had held the guidelines violated defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to jury trials because they allowed judges to set sentences based on facts jurors never heard.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Dillon’s argument, holding in a 7-1 decision (PDF) by Justice Sonia Sotomayor that the resentencing judge was bound by the amended guidelines. According to the blog Sentencing Law and Policy, the court “draws a clear … distinction between sentence modification proceedings and full sentencing.”
A dissent by Justice John Paul Stevens said the majority “has turned a blind eye to the fundamental sea-change that was our decision in Booker.”
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. did not participate in the case.
