Sentencing Commission Lists “Economic Crimes,” “Mandatory
Minimums” as 2015 Priorities
By Derek Gilna
The U.S.
Sentencing Commission is an interesting body.
Created by Congress to deal with complex sentencing issues, with a
minimum of legislative direction and oversight, it now enjoys wide discretion
to make serious changes to sentencing law,
subject only to a veto by Congress
prior to the effective date of any changes. The most recent two-level drug reduction is a
perfect example; Congress could have derailed it, but chose not to. That’s a nice way to pass the buck and avoid
any blow-back for being “soft on crime.”
That’s what
makes the Commissions Fall press release even more significant. The press release says: “only Congress can
make the more fundamental changes needed to fix the disparities and problems
the Commission has found some mandatory penalties to (reduce) federal prison
populations and costs.”
What this really means is that the
Commission recognizes that Congress as currently constituted is probably
incapable of decisive, prison-emptying actions, but in the meantime, we at the
Commission will nibble around the edges, but not enough to have you slackers in
Congress veto what we doing.
Drug
offenders got their reductions in 2014, and in 2015 it will be the white-collar
and mandatory minimum offenders’ turn, the Commission appears to be
saying. The Commission also says that
one of its priorities is to “focus on fulfilling its statutory mandate to work
to reduce overcapacity in federal prisons.”
The
Commission noted that it received
thousands of public comments, which you can believe were overwhelmingly
in favor of sentence reduction. Here’s hoping the Commission follows through on
this and other initiatives in the New Year.
My educated guess is that they will.
