Dorsey v. United States

Summary

The Supreme Court held that the Fair Sentencing Act's new, lower crack-cocaine mandatory minimums (an 18-to-1 crack-to-powder ratio) apply to offenders who committed crack offenses before the Act's August 3, 2010 effective date but were sentenced after that date. Weighing six considerations taken together — including the 1871 saving statute's 'plain import'/'fair implication' standard, the Sentencing Reform Act's sentencing-date-Guidelines background principle, the Act's Section 8 'applicable law' language, and the disparities and sentencing 'cliffs' that applying the old 100-to-1 minimums would create — the Court concluded that Congress plainly intended the lenient penalties to reach pre-Act offenders, and it further held that the new minimums apply even to offenders sentenced between August 3 and November 1, 2010, before the conforming Guidelines took effect. The judgments of the Seventh Circuit imposing the old 10-year minimums on Hill and Dorsey were vacated and remanded. Justice Scalia, dissenting and joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas and Alito, would have held that 1 U.S.C. §109 dictates that the old, harsher mandatory minimums remain in force for pre-enactment offenders.