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Crack cocaine. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (Pub. L. 111–220 (text)) was an Act of Congress that was signed into federal law by United States President Barack Obama on August 3, 2010, that reduces the disparity between the amount of crack cocaine and powder cocaine needed to trigger certain federal criminal penalties from a 100:1 weight ratio to an 18:1 weight ratio [1] and eliminated the ...
Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957 (1991), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.The Court ruled that the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause allowed a state to impose a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the possession of 672 grams (23.70 oz) of cocaine.
Dorsey v. United States, 567 U.S. 260 (2012), is a Supreme Court of the United States decision in which the Court held that reduced mandatory minimum sentences for "crack cocaine" under the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 does apply to defendants who committed a crime before the Act went into effect but who were sentenced after that date.
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Knight, now 52, won a reprieve under the First Step Act, the 2018 federal law that allows federal judges to reduce sentences of some defendants convicted of offenses related to crack cocaine.
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The Act amended 21 U.S.C. 844 to make crack cocaine the only drug with a mandatory minimum penalty for a first offense of simple possession. The Act made possession of more than five grams of a mixture or substance containing cocaine base punishable by at least five years in prison.
On the other hand, possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine carries the same sentence. [16] [17] In 2010, the Fair Sentencing Act cut the sentencing disparity to 18:1. [19] In 2012, 88% of imprisonments from crack cocaine were African American. Further, the data shows the discrepancy between lengths of sentences of crack cocaine and heroin.