Opinion ID: 177560
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Application of the Fair Sentencing Act

Text: On August 3, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (FSA). The FSA amended the Controlled Substances Act and Controlled Substances Import and Export Act by resetting the drug quantities required to trigger mandatory minimum sentences. As is relevant here, the minimum quantity of crack required to trigger the mandatory minimum was increased from 5 grams to 28 grams. Compare 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B)(iii) (2008) with 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B)(iii) (2010). If Bell were sentenced today under the FSA, his distribution of 5.69 grams of crack cocaine would be insufficient to trigger the mandatory minimum sentencing provisions; he would be subject only to a 30-year (360-month) maximum. See 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C) (2010). Three days after the FSA was enacted, Bell, who had not previously challenged any aspect of his sentence, filed a pro se motion for leave to file a supplemental brief regarding the application of the FSA to his case. We granted Bell's motion, ordered his court-appointed counsel to file a brief on his behalf, and ordered the government to file a response. After reviewing the ably prepared briefs of both parties, we conclude that the FSA is not retroactive and therefore does not apply to Bell's case. The general federal savings statute, 1 U.S.C. § 109, provides that [t]he repeal of any statute shall not have the effect to release or extinguish any penalty, forfeiture, or liability incurred under such statute, unless the repealing Act so shall expressly provide. . . . [T]he saving clause has been held to bar application of ameliorative criminal sentencing laws repealing harsher ones in force at the time of the commission of an offense. Warden, Lewisburg Penitentiary v. Marrero, 417 U.S. 653, 661, 94 S.Ct. 2532, 41 L.Ed.2d 383 (1974). We have also recognized that the application of the savings statute extends beyond mere repeals and reaches amendments to criminal statutes as well, see United States v. Stillwell, 854 F.2d 1045, 1047-48 (7th Cir.1988), unless the new law by its terms applies retroactively. So if the savings statute applies to the FSA, the FSA in turn cannot operate retroactively to reduce Bell's sentence. Like our sister circuits that have considered this issue, see United States v. Gomes, 621 F.3d 1343, 1346 (11th Cir. 2010); United States v. Carradine, 621 F.3d 575, 579-81 (6th Cir.2010), we conclude that the savings statute operates to bar the retroactive application of the FSA. Bell's arguments to the contrary are novel but ultimately unpersuasive. First, he argues that the FSA does not release or extinguish any penalty, and therefore should not be subject to the savings statute. In his view, the FSA merely redefines the groups serious drug traffickers and major drug traffickers, two groups at whom Congress originally aimed the stiff mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes. He rests this argument on United States v. Kolter, 849 F.2d 541 (11th Cir.1988), in which the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the savings statute did not bar the retroactive application of a new definition of the term convicted felon because the redefined term invalidated case law, not a statute, and because the redefinition did not affect punishment prescribed, just the class of individuals subject to it. Id. at 544. The present case is distinguishable from Kolter, however, in that the FSA expressly amended the punishment portion of 21 U.S.C. § 841. Additionally, the terms serious and major drug traffickers do not appear in either the preexisting or FSA-amended versions of 21 U.S.C. § 841. They were employed by the House as part of its findings relating to the initial version of the Fair Sentencing Act it passed, see Drug Sentencing Reform & Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act of 2009, H.R. 265, 111th Cong. § 2(3), (4) (2009), but their absence from the enacted version of the bill, coupled with Kolter's emphasis on statutory redefinition, renders Bell's argument unavailing. Bell also contends that the savings statute should not bar the retroactive application of the FSA because the FSA is curative or remedial. See Marrero, 417 U.S. at 661, 94 S.Ct. 2532 ([T]he general saving clause does not ordinarily preserve discarded remedies or procedures. . . .). Though the terminology he employs is different from his first argument (and appears to conflate remedial with remedy), his underlying contention is substantially similar. That is, he attempts to fit the FSA into one of the narrow exceptions to the savings statute, this time statutes that primarily affect procedures or remedies. See United States v. Blue Sea Line, 553 F.2d 445, 448 (5th Cir.1977) (If a statutory change is primarily procedural, it will take precedence over prior law in such cases; if the change affects a penalty, the saving clause preserves the pre-repeal penalty.). This argument falters for the same reason as the first: the FSA expressly amended the punishment portion of 21 U.S.C. § 841. No procedures or remedies were altered by the passage of the FSA. Unlike the statutes analyzed in Blue Sea Line and United States v. Mechem, 509 F.2d 1193 (10th Cir.1975), which were aimed at overhauling the Shipping Act of 1916 and the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act, respectively, the FSA's predominant purpose was to change the punishments associated with drug offenses. The savings statute therefore prevents it from operating retroactively absent any indication from Congress. And since the FSA does not contain so much as a hint that Congress intended it to apply retroactively, it cannot help Bell here.