The bill was introduced on July 31, 2013, by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and referred to the Judiciary Committee on October 20, 2013. That should make sentencing changes that much harder, Politico said. Politico ran an analysis last week reporting that Sens Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Charles Grassley (R-IA), the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, are still talking about a merger of bills such as the First Step Implementation Act (S.1014), the Smarter Sentencing Act (S.1013), and the COVID-19 Safer Detention Act (S. 312) into a single narrow follow-up bill amending the First Step Act, Durbin and Grassley are calling aSecond Step Act. The current MORE Act has collected only one Republican co-sponsor. The bipartisan bill introduction was led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). In fact, prosecutors bring mandatory minimums65 percent more oftenagainst Black defendants, all else remaining equal. Because you are a member of panel, your positions on legislation and notes below will be shared with the panel administrators. Well be in touch. The bill is cosponsored by ten Democratic senators, including three presidential contenders, making the likelihood it will pass in the Senate virtually zero. May 1, 2023 . The 113th Congress held several hearing and heard testimony through 2013 and 2014 without passage. In fact, earlier this year,Garland reinstateda2010 Holder policythat incorporated along-standing directive to federal prosecutors: Where two crimes have the same statutory maximum and the same guideline range, but only one contains a mandatory minimum penalty, the one with the mandatory minimum should be charged. As of 03/27/2021 text has not been received for S.1013 - A bill to focus limited Federal resources on the most serious offenders. Download PDF II 117th CONGRESS 1st Session S. 1013 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES March 25, 2021 The safety valve is critical to many defendants because a) it lowers their offense level by two points and b) it can drop an offender below a mandatory minimum sentence. FAMM has supported past versions of the Smarter Sentencing Act. While Ohio State law professor Doug Berman is skeptical of their chances, he notes that prior iterations of [the, SMARTER SENTENCING ACT RE-INTRODUCED IN SENATE, A lot of what had been contained in prior versions of the. In short, federal incarceration has become one of our nations biggest expenditures, dwarfing the amount spent on law enforcement. My kids need their father home and I would love to have the help and our family complete . [3] The House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary was the next step in the bill being passed into law. (b)(1)(B): The 10-year mandatory minimumfor a prior drug offense would drop to 5 years, and the 5-year mandatory minimumfloor would drop to 2 years. Committee on the Judiciary, Durbin, Lee Introduce Smarter Sentencing Act (March 26, 2021), Congressional Record, Statements On Introduced Bills And Joint Resolutions (S.1013 and S.1014) (March 25, 2021), Sentencing Law and Policy, Senators Durbin and Grassley re-introduce Smarter Sentencing Act to reduce federal drug mandatory minimums (March 26, 2021). Sens. And his Dept, of Justice finally reinterpreted the CARES Act to let people on home confinement stay there. To dismantle Americas dehumanizing and racially skewedhuman cagingsystem, we must eliminate mandatory minimums. . New Republic: Three Incredibly Popular Things That Congress Chose to Leave Out of the Spending Bill (December 20, 2022), Reason, Congress Yet Again Fails To Pass Crack Cocaine Sentencing Reforms (December 20, 2022), Marijuana Moment, Schumers last ditch cannabis banking push (December 19, 2022), Reason, Merrick Garlands New Charging Policy Aims To Ameliorate the Damage His Boss Did As a Drug Warrior (December 19, 2022), Beforeitsnews.com, The Failure To Enact Marijuana Banking and Crack Sentencing Reforms Is a Window on Congressional Dysfunction (December 22, 2022), Filter, The Limits of AGs Guidelines Against Crack-Powder Sentencing Disparity (December 21, 2022). You recall that in Terry v. United States last June, the Supreme Court held that Section 404 did not qualify pre-2010 crack sentences for sentence reduction. %PDF-1.5 Write your legislator today! (b)(1)(B): The 10-year mandatory minimumfor a prior drug offense would drop to 5 years, and the 5-year mandatory minimumfloor would drop to 2 years. If you can, please take a few minutes to help us improve GovTrack for users like you. FAMM S. 1013: Smarter Sentencing Act of 2021 Overview Summary Cosponsors Details Text Study Guide The text of the bill below is as of Mar 25, 2021 (Introduced). The Smarter Sentencing Act proposes similar adjustments: (b)(1)(A): The 15-year mandatory minimumfor a prior drug offense would drop to 10 years, and the 10-year mandatory minimumfloor would drop to 5 years. It would do so in three ways: First, it would expand eligibility for the drug safety valve so that people with some criminal history up to Guidelines Category II would still be eligible. The term 'courier' means a defendant whose role in the offense was limited to transporting or storing drugs or money.''. SmarterSentencing would also create a new category of `courier for a defendant whose role was limited to transporting or storing drugs or money. He wrote, As a former influential senator and Judiciary Committee chairman, President Joe Biden is at least partially responsible for the explosive growth of our federal prison population. 1 0 obj The Smarter Sentencing Act, an updated version of the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2019 (which went nowhere), continues the mandatory minimum adjustments to 21 USC 841 (b), the sentencing section of the drug trafficking statute begun by the First Step Act. Bills and resolutions are referred to committees which debate the bill before possibly sending it on to the whole chamber. WASHINGTON Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) cosponsored the Smarter Sentencing Act, bipartisan legislation designed to bring judicial discretion and flexibility to non-violent drug charge sentencing. At the same time, Durbin and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced S.1014, the First Step Implementation Act of 2021. Most of the original text was lined through and new text was incorporated. Washington, D.C. 20005 Lee and Durbin first introduced the Smarter Sentencing Act in 2013. |author=117th Congress (2021) We hope to enable educators to build lesson plans centered around any bill or vote in Congress, even those as recent as yesterday. 13 Cosponsors As for marijuana, the Senates failure to act comes as a repudiation of Bidens efforts for pot reform. Lee and Durbin first introduced theSmarter Sentencing Actin 2013. Under 21 USC 960, the drug importation criminal statute, they get hammered with the same mandatory sentences as Mr. Big, the kingpin staying safely offshore. Bills numbers restart every two years. S.1014 applies the same serious drug felony definition to all three subsections. WASHINGTON - Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) cosponsored the "Smarter Sentencing Act," bipartisan legislation designed to bring judicial discretion and flexibility to non-violent drug charge sentencing. Your note is for you and will not be shared with anyone. FAX: 410-934-3208. And we will start all over again, but with a much unfriendlier House of Representatives. 801 et seq.) Importantly, the bill makes its changes retroactive, enabling people who now have mandatory minimum sentenceschanged by the bill to ask their judges for a sentence reduction. Only a few bills have been voted out of committee in the Senate the COVID-19 Safer Detention Act, the First Step Implementation Act of 2021, and the Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act. And starting in 2019 well be tracking Congresss oversight investigations of the executive branch. The sheer number of motions likely to be filed might be enough to give Congress pause on this one. However, despite Garlands testimony, his Department of Justice has given no sign that it will stop pursuing mandatory minimums. The United States Sentencing Commission scheduled a vote of for April 10, 2014, to consider a reduction in the base level offense of certain drug convictions. Several important reforms from the Smarter Sentencing Act were included in the landmark First Step Act, which was enacted into law in 2018. Youre more than a vote, so support GovTrack today with a tip of any amount: Or keep using GovTrack for free! endobj The votes of at least four members are required for the Commission to promulgate amendments to the Guidelines. The Commission has been paralyzed by lack of quorum since December 2018. The Smarter Sentencing Act, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, would take some of the sting out of federal drug sentencing. Chuck Grassley U.S. Senate 135 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Dear Chairman Durbin and Ranking Member Grassley: We are writing to urge you to advance the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2021, a bipartisan bill that promotes The Smarter Sentencing Act (S.1013) is a bill in the United States Senate that would reduce mandatory minimum sentences for some federal drug offenses. The Smarter Sentencing Act of 2015 was a continued effort from the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2013/2014. 841(b)(1)(A) and (b)(1)(B). The decision was unanimous by the Commission in favor of the reductions which impacts potentially 70% of the drug offense prison population. And neither is the rumor that everyone will get a sentence cut because of COVID. In the last iteration of the bill, S.1933 (115th Congress, 2017-18), the bill proposed an expanded safety valve under 18 USC 3553(f) to allow a court to impose a sentence below the statutory mandatory minimum for an otherwise eligible drug offender who has three or fewer criminal history points. Required fields are marked *, There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice. ~ Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brde et de Montesquieu, The Spirit of Law (1748), Copyright 2022, LISA Foundation and Legal Information Services Associates LLC. Mandatory minimums dehumanize people by in the words of Judge Stephanos Bibas acting as sledgehammers rather than scalpels, falling with equal force on people whose circumstances are dramatically different from one another and preventing judges from calibrating punishment to suit the person or the crime. Join GovTrack.uss Inner Circle With a Yearly Membership, In retaliation for prosecutor Alvin Bragg indicting Trump, ALVIN Act would ban federal funds for, On March 29, Arizona Republican Andy Biggs introduced a (possible record) 521 bills in one day, No More Political Prosecutions Act would give presidents like Trump option to move their legal. Some of the Smarter Sentencing Act provisions echo those of the Sentence Reform and Corrections Act of 2017, introduced two days earlier. For Media Inquiries: That gives it a fighting chance of passing in todays barely Democrat-controlled Congress.. And with mid-terms putting all of the House and a third of Senate up for re-election in November and crime rates shooting up, getting legislators on board for criminal justice reform is going to be more challenging. The SSA will give judges the flexibility and discretion they need to impose stiff sentences on the most serious drug lords and cartel bosses, while enabling nonviolent offenders to return more quickly to their families and communities., Mandatory minimum penalties have played a large role in the explosion of the U.S. prison population, often leading to sentences that are unfair, fiscally irresponsible, and a threat to public safety,Sen. Durbin said. This change was incorporated into the First Step Act. Document Citations. Since Bidens inauguration, criminal justice reform has taken a back seat to his more prominent initiatives, last Marchs American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in November, and the now seemingly-dead Build Back Better social-spending blowout. Bills numbers restart every two years. We were a bit befuddled when Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) announced by press release on October 5, 2017, that he and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) had reintroduced the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2017. It was not clear whether this was a complete retread of the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2015, S. 502, that died without a vote last December, or whether it was new and improved (or just different). An online version of this release can be found, Sen. Lee Cosponsors the Smarter Sentencing Act. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin (D- Ill.) and cosponsored by 11 of their colleagues. The act also proposes to trade the language of "Felony Drug Offense" in 841 with "serious drug felony" or "serious violent felony," the new language from the FIRST STEP Act of 2018. It faces another battle to pass through the rest of Congress, and Utahs delegation should be there to vote in support. Ironically, this jailbreak bill even provided early release for those who helped prisoners break out of jail. And there is no 65% Bill. The House of Representatives version, known as HR920, was re-introduced by Idaho Republican Raul Labrador in February 2015. Once, only Sen Tom Cotton (R-Ark) (who calls First Step Trumps biggest mistake) demanded longer sentences. But reformers pushed back, and by mid-century a rehabilitative sentencing model began to replace the punitive model. But some marijuana and cocaine reform even though it was not quite what was in the MORE Act and EQUAL Act that passed the House looked likely as late as last week. In 1970, Congress repealed most drug-related mandatory minimums, taking more of apublic health approachto drug policy. It also added language making the reforms applicable to past cases. Second, the Smarter Sentencing Act would make the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA) retroactive. Even though federal prosecutors all of whom are subject to supervision by the Department of Justice have long been the primary proponents of mandatory minimums, Attorney General Merrick Garland affirmed this position during his confirmation hearings: We should . Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. First, a letter sent last week by 25 state attorneys general to House and Senate leadership, urging an expansion of Section 404 of the First Step Act to include people sentenced under 21 USC 841(b)(1)(C). A letter from Bushman and his group to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) -- just one of several letters written by the Smarter Sentencing Act opponents that Bushman said are floating around Capitol Hill -- argues that federal policy should not be driven by "second-order effects of America's drug problem" like incarceration costs. U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley scheduled sentencing for Aug. 10, 2023. Because of this, many individuals have been needlessly imprisoned for far too long in comparison to the crime committed. We hope that with your input we can make GovTrack more accessible to minority and disadvantaged communities who we may currently struggle to reach. The American people deserve better.. Under current law, a defendant must be in Category I to benefit from the safety valve. Under the new law, if passed, someone could have a serious conviction on their record and still be eligible. Zip. "Bill Summary: Smarter Sentencing Act of 2021", "Democrats and Republicans in Congress Actually Found Something to Agree on", "S. 502 / H.R. Inflexible, harsh sentences exacerbate crime and racial disparities alike. While the Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the crack-cocaine disparity bill last year, it has yet to schedule a markup. Reuters reported a week ago that Senate negotiators had reached a potential compromise. stream If you teach United States government and would like to speak with us about bringing legislative data into your classroom, please reach out! 4 0 obj making the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which reduced disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1, retroactive. (iii)by striking "mandatory term of life imprisonment without release" and inserting "term of imprisonment of not less than 25 years"; and, (B)in the flush text following clause (viii) 1013 117th Congress: Smarter Sentencing Act of 2021. www.GovTrack.us. Under the 2018 bill, the change affected people sentenced under 841(b)(1)(A) and (b)(1)(B), but not people sentenced under the lowest level of sentence, 841(b)(1)(C). Your note is for you and will not be shared with anyone. So in other words, it would look like this: such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment which may not be less than 10 5 years or more than life and if death or serious bodily injury results from the use of such substance shall be not less than 20 years or more than lifeIf any person commits such a violation after a prior conviction for a serious drug felony or serious violent felonyhas become final, such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 15 10years and not more than life imprisonment and if death orserious bodily injury results from the use of such substance shall be sentenced to life imprisonment. It would not affect mandatory minimums in21 USC 841(b). Smarter Sentencing Act of 2021 This bill reduces statutory mandatory minimum penalties for certain drug offenses, requires reporting on the impact of cost savings from the reductions, and establishes a public database of federal criminal offenses. Congress.gov is generally updated one day after events occur, and so legislative activity shown here may be one day behind. He added that if Democrats agree to certain provisions related to law enforcement, that might make it possible to get something done.. Text for S.1013 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Smarter Sentencing Act of 2021 Please join our advisory group to let us know what more we can do. In 2018, Republicans passed the pro-criminal First Step Act. Would you like to join our advisory group to work with us on the future of GovTrack? "Sec. Esta pgina no est disponible en espaol. Congressmen Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Raul Labrador (R-ID) introduced the Smarter Sentencing Act (H.R. Of all the criminal justice reform bills in Congress the First Step Implementation Act (S.1014), the Smarter Sentencing Act (S.1013), the COVID-19 Safer Detention Act (S.312), the Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act (S.601), the EQUAL Act (S.79) and the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act (H.R. The fact that a large number of House Republicans joined Democrats in passing the EQUAL Act last year is not reassuring: the trick will be getting a Republican speaker who controls what comes up for a vote put the bill in front of the chamber. <>>> The United States Senate has Bought forth the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2021, which will do much for mandatory minimums and "Couriers" if passed. Senate aides on both sides of the aisle warn that EQUAL could still face a challenging path to final passage, including a potentially arduous debate over amendments. It would return to judges some of the vital discretion they need to provide more individualized sentencing and enable many people convicted of low-level offenses to return home to their families much sooner. endobj Several of its provisions made it into theFirst Step Act, which was enacted into law in 2018, but the changes in mandatory minimums for most drug offenses would not. Any of these reforms would be a step toward establishing a new paradigm that abjures mandatory minimums and respects human dignity. [2] The Senate version (S.502) had gained 12 Bi-partisan co-sponsors by late May 2015; the house version (H.R.920) had 43 Bi-partisan co-sponsors by the same date. |date=March 25, 2021 Apr 26, 2023, But presidents still wouldnt be able to move their legal cases to the shows The Peoples Court or Divorce Court. While Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee(D-Texas) has introduced such a bill in a number of previous sessions of Congress since 2001, there is no such bill in the hopper now. But then, Attorney General Merrick Garland picked the middle of the negotiations to issue a memo directing federal prosecutors to promote the equivalent treatment of crack and powder cocaine offenses in two ways. In October, the president pardoned thousands of people convicted of simple marijuana possession (although no one pardoned was in federal prison) and said his administration would review how the drug is categorized. Although this bill was not enacted, its provisions could have become law by being included in another bill. First, mandatory minimums shackle judges. Phone: (202) 822-6700, FAMM releases statement on the introduction of the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2021, FAMM and NACDL Present: The Vanishing Trial, FAMMsubmits testimony in support of Illinois medical release bill, FAMM releases statement followingSenate introduction of the First Step Implementation Act. Mar 25, 2021 117 th Congress (2021-2023) Status Died in a previous Congress This bill was introduced on March 25, 2021, in a previous session of Congress, but it did not receive a vote. It would extend retroactivity to anyone sentenced for drug or stacked 924(c) offenses sentenced prior to the 2018 First Step Act and let judges waive criminal history limitations that keep defendants from getting the 18 USC 3553 safety value. The bill does not explicitly make any change it proposes retroactive other than the extension of the FSA, but a fair reading of Section 5 of the SSAsuggests that the Sentencing Commission should do so according to its retroactivity procedures. |quote=Smarter Sentencing Act of 2021 It goes without saying that this would be a great bill if it manages to pass Congress and get to President Obama. The mandatory minimum for a courier under 21 USC 960, the importation statute, would essentially be cut in half. By joining our advisory group, you can help us make GovTrack more useful and engaging to young voters like you. The Schumer bill has been released as a working draft but has yet to be formally introduced. Thus, a crack defendant sentenced August 3, 2009, was hammered with the 100:1 ratio, while a defendant sentenced August 3, 2010, was treated more in line with what a cocaine powder defendant would face. But both senior senators acknowledge its not a glide path forward, Politico said, particularly given the GOP messaging on rising crime ahead of the 2022 midterms a focus that was on full display during Ketanji Brown Jacksons Supreme Court hearings last month., Jackson was blasted last month by a few Republican senators for being too soft on sentencingchild sex abuse and drug offenders. S. 1013 117th Congress: Smarter Sentencing Act of 2021. The important but piecemeal work of criminal justice reform continued last week with two significant bills being introduced in the Senate. Sentencing reform is dead for another two years. But somehow, when the public sees the same defendant, bent and gray, shuffling across the prison yard a quarter century later, the tough sentence seems pretty wasteful. Although sentencing is supposed to be carried out by a neutral judge, mandatory minimums upend this system by positioning one adversary the prosecutor as the ultimate decision-maker, barring the judge from considering a persons history, culpability, or family responsibilities. Additionally, the bill corrects a weird anomaly in the First Step Act that redefined prior drug cases for which a defendant can get an 851 enhancement (which increases the mandatory minimum where the defendant has certain prior drug convictions) to limit such priors to crimes punishable by more than 10 years for which the defendant was actually sentenced to more than a year. ), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass. April 12, 2021 The Hon. The Smarter Sentencing Act is endorsed by the following organizations: American Conservative Union, Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Tax Reform, Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, Dream Corps JUSTICE, Due Process Institute, FAMM, Federal Public and Community Defenders, FreedomWorks, Justice Action Network, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Prison Fellowship, and R Street Institute. People like Cottonmake even common-sense federal criminal justice reform a hard sell. We are experienced, and know what it takes to present a successful defense in a federal criminal case. A couple of bills before Congress would reduce but not eliminate mandatory minimums: the EQUAL Act (lowers minimums for crack to equal those of powder) has passed the House but hasnt yet cleared committee in the Senate; the MORE Act (decriminalizes marijuana retroactively) has been approved by a House committee but has not been passed by the House or Senate; the First Step Implementation Act (makes First Step mandatory minimum reductions retroactive) and the Smarter Sentencing Act (reduces mandatory minimum penalties for certain nonviolent drug offenses only) have not even cleared committee in either the House or Senate. Grassley was enraged, blasting the Garland memo as demanding that prosecutors ignore the text and spirit of federal statutes [and] undermining legislative efforts to address this sentencing disparity. And just like that, when the text of the 4,000-page, $1.7 trillion spending bill was released, the watered-down EQUAL Act was nowhere to be found. 911 (2015) Colleen Shannon Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.uic.edu/lawreview Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, and the Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons President Biden and his attorney general havedenounced mandatory minimums, as did former Attorney General Eric Holder. 3 0 obj Young Americans have historically been the least involved in politics, despite the huge consequences policies can have on them. At the federal level alone, mandatory minimum penalties form the cornerstone of the human caging system. Writing in the Washington Examiner last week, Matt Schlapp chairman of the American Conservative Union argued that Congress should act to ensure that CARES Act home confinees stay at home after the pandemic ends. It would be an excellent starting point to developing a less destructive drug-sentencing scheme. <> Were looking to learn more about who uses GovTrack and what features you find helpful or think could be improved. I think that the time is right for its passage given the makeup of congress and the need for reform. We recommend the following MLA-formatted citation when using the information you see here in academic work: GovTrack.us. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin (D- Ill.) and cosponsored by 11of their colleagues. The Brennan Center crafts innovative policies and fights for them in Congress and the courts. ], Far from the only effect, the Jackson hearings have also dampened the interest in doing what we call the Second Step Act, but were still seeing what can be worked out, Grassley said in a brief interview. The Senate has to confirm at least three new members and none has yet been nominated by President Biden before the Commission can do anything. Instead, we need a paradigm shift. Bills are generally sent to the Library of Congress from GPO, the Government Publishing Office, a day or two after they are introduced on the floor of the House or Senate.

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