The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Monday in Pulsifer v. United States, one of the most important criminal law cases in recent memory.
The issue in Pulsifer is very specific: the meaning of the word “and” in an obscure federal statute. But the consequences are massive. If the court rules against the government, then thousands more federal defendants each year can avoid federal drug laws’ draconian mandatory minimum sentences.
Since the 1980s, people convicted of federal drug crimes have been subject to 10-year mandatory minimum sentences for relatively modest amounts of drugs. If you transport one kilogram of heroin, 280 grams of crack cocaine or just 50 grams of methamphetamine, then you are looking at a mandatory 10 years in prison. These sentencing rules were enacted in 1986 during a moral panic that was sparked by the basketball player Len Bias’s cocaine-related death. With minor exceptions, they have not been changed in the four decades since.
These 10-year sentences are incredibly harsh, especially since they apply to even the lowest-level drug defendants. As former federal public defenders, we have represented scores of people facing these mandatory minimums. Our clients in these cases have included 18-year-olds, honor students, battered women, veterans, parents, grandparents and drug addicts in need of treatment. Ten years in prison is often a far too harsh punishment in these cases. It destroys the lives of people who could be helped and leaves their families and communities to pick up the pieces.
Fortunately, the provision at issue in Pulsifer provides some relief. Nicknamed the “Safety Valve,” it gives federal drug defendants the opportunity to avoid a mandatory minimum sentence if they meet several criteria. These include not using violence or a weapon in the crime, not harming anyone, not being a leader of the drug-dealing enterprise and giving prosecutors all the information they have about the crime.
Defendants who receive Safety Valve get relief from the minimum mandatory sentence, but it does not change the maximum sentence (which is usually life in prison). So sentencing judges retain complete discretion to impose a very long sentence if they choose. The Walter Whites of the world can still be locked up for decades.
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