Furthermore, he argued for a new sentencing range between fifty-seven and seventy-one months (between four and a half to six years), asking the court to sentence him to time served in consideration of his drug treatment, pursuit of education, and overall good behavior while in prison. Specifically, Concepcion argued that he no longer qualified as a career offender under current law. In his arguments to the district court, he asked the court to consider intervening legal and factual developments since his initial sentencing. Then, after the enactment of the First Step Act, Concepcion again filed a motion to reduce his sentence. įollowing the passage of the Fair Sentencing Act, Concepcion filed several motions to review his sentence, each failing. District Court for the District of Massachusetts deemed a nineteen-year sentence appropriate. Because of his particular criminal history, Concepcion was deemed a “career offender.” In light of this, Concepcion faced a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years. In 2008, just two years before the Fair Sentencing Act, Carlos Concepcion pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine. This opened the door to relief for thousands of defendants who had been disproportionately, and discriminatorily, sentenced between 19. It wasn’t until 2018, when Congress enacted the First Step Act, that the Fair Sentencing Act became retroactive. However, the Fair Sentencing Act did not apply retroactively to defendants who were sentenced under the 100-to-1 regime. In effect, the Fair Sentencing Act substantially increased the amount of crack cocaine needed to trigger a mandatory-minimum sentence. In 2010, Congress enacted the Fair Sentencing Act which reduced the disparity from 100-to-1 to an 18-to-1 crack-to-powder ratio. This 100-to-1 sentencing disparity was widely criticized as discriminatory against African Americans, and other minorities, who are more likely to be convicted of a crack cocaine offense than white individuals. By: Rhianna Torgerud, Volume 106 Staff Memberįrom 1986 to 2010, one gram of crack cocaine was treated as equivalent to 100 grams of powder cocaine when setting federal statutory minimum and maximum sentences.
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