American Civil Liberties Union

Yesterday, USA Today reported on a letter the ACLU sent to top officials at the Department of Justice, urging immediate action to identify and possibly release dozens of wrongfully imprisoned federal inmates.

The Supreme Court ruled today that the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (FSA), which reduced the disparity in federal sentencing between crack and powder cocaine, applies to people whose offenses pre-date the law but who were sentenced after its passage. Read the opinion here.

The FSA was passed to correct the problems with the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which created an unfair sentencing scheme that unequally punished comparable offenses involving crack and powder cocaine — two forms of the same drug – and resulted in racially biased sentencing. To remedy the fact that the 100:1 ratio was without penological or scientific justification, and that it resulted in black defendants suffering significantly harsher penalties than white defendants, Congress passed the FSA and reduced the ratio from 100:1 to 18:1. As we’ve written before, the new ratio is a step in the right direction, although the only truly fair and empirically sound ratio would be 1:1.

As states begin to realize that they can reduce their prison populations safely, the pace of reform has begun to pick up a bit this year. State legislative sessions are coming to a close, which makes it a good time to review the actions lawmakers have taken to reduce their unsustainable prison populations in 2012. Here are the some of the legislative reform highlights:

Alabama

Faced with a system of overcrowded prisons and fearing the same sort of court order that forced California to reform its prison system, Alabama took an indirect route toward depopulating its prisons. The state passed SB 386 inMay, which will allow the Alabama Sentencing Commission to set sentencing guidelines for nonviolent crimes that judges would generally have to follow. Under the new law, the Commission can make sentencing changes for nonviolent crimes, which will take effect unless the legislature takes action to reject any such the changes. The Sentencing Commission, which is insulated from the electoral pressure to reject proposals to soften criminal sentences, may now be poised to take action to reduce prison sentences for nonviolent offenses.

In 2010, 22-year-old Jamel Dossie served as a middle-man in a series of hand-to-hand crack sales. After three transactions involving a federal informant, Mr. Dossie had handed over – “sold” – a total of 88.1 grams, or 3.1 ounces, of crack. For his part, he earned $140.

Unfortunately for Mr. Dossie, selling more than 28 grams of crack triggers a five-year mandatory minimum sentence. This March, after a short sentencing proceeding in which federal Judge John Gleeson wasn’t allowed to consider Mr. Dossie’s very minor role in the transaction, his remorse for the offense or his personal background, the prosecutor called for a five-year prison sentence, and that was that.