S.1789 - Fair Sentencing Act of 2009

A bill to restore fairness to Federal cocaine sentencing. view all titles (6)

All Bill Titles

  • Official: A bill to restore fairness to Federal cocaine sentencing. as introduced.
  • Short: Fair Sentencing Act of 2009 as introduced.
  • Short: Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 as reported to senate.
  • Short: Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 as passed senate.
  • Short: Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 as passed house.
  • Short: Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 as enacted.


Comments Feed

  • jbird6813 11/23/2009 10:13am

    Please help me to undrstnd how u can introduce a bill tht openly ignores the inmates tht have been sitting behind bars for yrs due to racism and injustice of the federal judicial system. I believe that people lie, but numbers don’t. The numbers clearly show that thousand of black men and women incarcerated in our federal prison system were sentenced under outrageous guidelines. Who are you to want to change a law because of statistics, but totally ignore the men and women doing the time who lives and families have been torn apart by the so-called justice system that make the statistical numbers. You are letting the world know that you know that the people incarcerated under the drug kingpin law of I believe 1986 is unjust, but u dnt care abt those men and women and they’re families. U can only concentrate on the cases to come. Now, Now, we cant let all those people who have done the time for their crime and then some free. What would we do with all those people who we have wronged?

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    jrreich 01/04/2010 11:34am


    What is outrageous about the guidelines?

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    cargohook 01/16/2010 1:51pm

    Why don’t you do your homework like thousands of other people have, before spouting off ignorantly about this or any subject? There’s a mountain of evidence, statistical data, case studies and reports on this subject, all you have to do is use Google.

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    miamiamia 04/07/2010 5:00pm

    What is outrageous about the guidelines clearly, you must be a prosecutor or maybe a public defender. Since everyone knows that a public defender gets you nothing but a long trip. Lie after lie, make you believe that they are out for you and working for you. Yeah maybe in a perfect world but we live in the real world. Which is you mess up and catch a drug charge and they railroad you, no matter what this will be with you for the rest of your life. But a man can molest children and go on living life, walking around freely, so you tell me. What is wrong with the guidelines?

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    miamiamia 04/07/2010 5:18pm
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    + -1

    I totaly agree, where is the justice for all of the previously sentenced. How is that fair? So rub it in their face that the government knew all along that these guildelines where injustice. But do nothing for them or their families. Tell me how that is sending a positive message about our justice system?

  • rnegram 12/14/2009 5:07am
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    + -1

    This is just one of many laws that have wronged a particular race of people. We have known for years that this law is and still remains unjusticed. The ones who created this law may have had other plans for it but it did more damaged to little people in this business. Even for the kingpins, a life sentence is over sentencing. Those who steal from their clients in investments firms get a slap on the hand and are returned to society as if nothing has happened because they run with the ones creating the law. This whole congress is a disgrace to what we, the people, really need. Yes, we vote to put you in office and we should vote to dismiss you as well. This law should be retroactive and those serving time should be able to get federal assistance once they are release. I’m sure none of your children would do the selling but most are the users, who only get rehab because of who they know. This shouldn’t be debatable, let my people go!!

  • Americafirst 12/21/2009 11:10pm

    Locally in WA in Dec. 2009
    person A gets 13 years for the murder of a teenager.
    person B gets 30 years for importing drugs. (no violence or deaths in entire case)
    LOTS of things are screwed up in sentencing.

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    snarlbuckle 01/27/2010 10:04am

    Person B is also likely to have started something that will result in dozens of deaths, especially teenagers. When I look at it this way, 30 years seems light.

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    miamiamia 04/07/2010 5:11pm

    I don’t think people are screaming rasism, what they are doing is expressing an opinion. Why is it that when a white person makes a comment it is considered a comment. But a black person makes a comment and it is considered a racis statement. Be more open minded people, we are one, work together not against each other. People have disagreed since the begining of time, so we can agree to disagree. But be respectful, we are living in a new day and time. We are not just black and white anymore, new races are born everyday.

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    mobius 08/04/2010 2:07pm

    No, you are wrong. The majority of the people selling and using drugs are actually white people (statistically). The population target by prosecutors are blacks. The sentencing disparity between powder and crack cocaine is a racist distinction. This bill aims to level the sentencing disparity. Crack is found in poorer communities (frequently non-white), while powdered cocaine is found amongst more wealthy communities (frequently white). The addictive properties are the same, and the danger to health is the same, in respective to the different forms according to surveys.
    If we instead, just made the powdered cocaine sentencing more harsh… the same as crack cocaine. whites would be outraged.

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    imnnedoflove 01/22/2010 4:10pm
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    + -1
    this sound so uneducated…if they could put a tax on drugs like they can with alcohol then this wouldn’t be…alcohol is a drug also yes it legal because they are getting money from…but do you think they care about how many people are addicted to alcohol and how many liquor store are going up in a day…I’ll just say this and maybe your understand for every drug house there is a liquor store…for every drug addict there is an alcoholic so let lock up the store owners and give them life
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    miamiamia 04/07/2010 4:48pm

    Black people, do you realy believe that it’s just black people. Get a clue drugs are every where and they have no names on them. Ever household in America has known someone that is on drugs or has been in trouble for drugs. So before you go start making stupid comments think of that person in your family drugs have effected. Weither you claim that person or not!

  • snarlbuckle 01/13/2010 4:46am

    I don’t see the problem. You get involved with illegal drugs and you get punished. If you don’t want to get punished, then DONT GET INVOLVED WITH ILLEGAL DRUGS!

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    jakemcbatuga 01/29/2010 12:08pm

    There is a huge problem. Drugs don’t necessarily hurt others, but they hurt you. And there is the obviously racial discrepancy between cocaine and crack cocaine. If you have x number of “doses” of cocaine that will get you one year, you can get up to one hundred years for the same number of “doses” of crack cocaine. Sure that is a more violent subculture, or was in the 1980’s, but the current discrepancy is unacceptable.

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    miamiamia 04/07/2010 5:37pm

    That is a, how can i put it, Stupid statement! First of all people turn to drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, all kinds of addictions for their own reasons. You don’t know what drove them to that addiction, death, devorce anything can trigger this. Not just using drugs some people do stupid things like sell drugs, because they see no other option. Times are hard and they think their doing the right thing to try and feed the family. This is not right but I think instead of locking these people away, they need to try to help mold them. Help them become someone that can fit in with society, not be singled out for being in prison. Over sentencing will not help them to have a good attitude to do the right thing.

  • Anonymous 01/17/2010 8:04pm


  • Anonymous 01/18/2010 5:50am


  • Anonymous 01/19/2010 7:43am


  • imnnedoflove 01/22/2010 4:20pm

    a man can kill his whole family and get less time and when he get out he more then likely will kill again…or a man can rape a child as young as 9mos and not do a day in jail…yes they committed a crime but not a violent one…so why take away there entire life my child father got 80yrs for riding in a car with someone that had Drugs no Drugs was found on him

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    miamiamia 04/07/2010 4:42pm

    This is such a sad subject because it is true, rapist and murderers get less time. Then to make matters worst they hit these men with maditory minimum sentencing and enhacements. My husband wasn’t a drug deal just in the wrong place at the wrong time and recieved 10 years in a Federal Prison. He didn’t even fall under these guidlines, but they worked their magic. Poof after turning money into crack and enhancements, end result prison. My children without their father and a single mother struggling. The cycle continues now what’s next, my children become statistics, my 13 year old son is acting out. Is this the governments plan to keep ethnic races under rap?

  • UKFiend56 01/28/2010 7:46am
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    + -1

    Everywhere where I have lived the socioeconomics of the area speak more towards crimes that are commited there than the race of the people that live there. I have had lots more friends that were white and sold drugs than were black…but that’s just me.

    …so maybe, historically, white people get off easier, but aren’t white people, historically, more wealthy and in a higher socioeconomic class?

  • ambrown 03/30/2010 5:17pm

    Lets focus on people that bother others as the pedifiles,murderers and the child abusers. They are the ones that need to be locked up.
    What’s worse?

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