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Why is Obama's DOJ, after urging Congress to "completely eliminate" any crack/powder disparity, now seeking to keep the 100-1 ratio in place as long as possible?

By Douglas A. Berman

There are lots of notable and important aspects to the thoughtful new opinion by US District Judge D. Brock Hornby in US v. Douglas, No. 09-202-P-H (D. Maine Oct. 27, 2010) (available here), which concludes that a defendant guilty of committing a crack offense back in 2009 but "not yet sentenced on November 1, 2010, is to be sentenced under the amended Guidelines, and the Fair Sentencing Act's altered mandatory minimums apply to such a defendant as well."  But in this post I want to spotlight and wonder aloud about a footnote from the opinion noting DOJ's current advocacy position on this important and consequential issue. Specifically, after explaining that the government in Douglas was urging that the old crack mandatory minimums apply to "to all future prosecutions and sentencings based on pre-August 3, 2010, conduct," Judge Hornby drops this footnote: At oral argument, I did inquire of the Assistant United States Attorney whether his argument was a matter of individual U...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on October 28, 2010 (boomark / email).