Court Opinion

ID: 9694282
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:34:47.77228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:58.762151
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Associate Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
One of the wisest exponents of our judicial craft cautioned more than eighty years ago that “[statutes] should be construed, not as theorems of Euclid, but with some imagination of the purposes which lie behind them.” Lehigh Valley Coal Co. v. Yensavage, 218 F. 547, 553 (2d Cir.1914), cert. denied, 235 U.S. 705, 35 S.Ct. 282, 59 L.Ed. 434 (1915) (Learned Hand, J.) (quoted in Luck v. District of Columbia, 617 A.2d 509, 513 n. 4 (D.C.1992)). Unfortunately, my colleagues in the majority have not heeded Judge Hand’s precept. Instead, they have treated the principal issue before us rather like a problem in algebra, and they have made no inquiry into the consequences of their decision or into whether the Council which enacted the legislation in question could really have intended these consequences.
The practical result of the majority’s construction of the Mandatory Minimum Sentences Amendment Act (MMSAA),1 D.C.Law 10-258, 42 D.C.Reg. 238 (effective May 25, 1995), will be that the defendants in these cases, as well as an unknown but substantial number of other persons, will be required to serve harsh mandatory minimum sentences without any consideration of each defendant’s individual circumstances. The majority so holds in spite of the fact that prior to the imposition of sentence in these eases, the Council of the District of Columbia had concluded, on the basis of a compelling legislative record, that mandatory minimum sentences were excessive for and unjust to some of the non-violent drug offenders who were being subjected to them.
It is our responsibility to ensure that men or women are not sent to prison, or kept *92there, unless such incarceration clearly and unambiguously reflects the legislative will. United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 348, 92 S.Ct. 515, 523, 30 L.Ed.2d 488 (1971) (citations omitted). I am satisfied that the Council never intended to compel a judge to impose a mandatory minimum sentence, after the effective date of the MMSAA, on any defendant who, in the judge’s opinion, does not deserve such a sentence. Moreover, in my view, the federal and District of Columbia general savings statutes on which the majority relies are inapplicable to the MMSAA, because the MMSAA did not release or extinguish any penalties, but simply provided judges with additional sentencing options. I am also satisfied that these savings statutes were not intended to override the Council’s ameliorative legislative intent in enacting the MMSAA. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from Part III of the majority opinion.
My colleagues discern a constitutionally sufficient “rational” basis for sentencing Ms. Jae Hoa Park to a mandatory minimum term of five years for possessing powdered cocaine with intent to distribute it (PWID), when the mandatory term would have been only four years if the drug in question had been “crack” cocaine — a far more addictive and dangerous drug. I am no apostle of judicial activism, but I do not see how we can justify keeping Ms. Park in prison for an extra year when the harsher punishment for powdered cocaine is patently irrational and was most probably placed in the statute by mistake. Accordingly, I also dissent from Part V C of Judge Ferren’s opinion for the court. I join the remainder of his opinion.
I.
THE MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCING ISSUE

A The MMSAA.

The past is prologue. “[Ejvery statute must be construed with reference to the original intent and meaning of the makers, which intent and meaning may be collected from the cause or necessity of the enactment, and the objects intended to be accomplished by it.” Ex parte Redmond, 3 App.D.C. 317, 318 (1894).
There is no better key to a difficult problem of statutory construction than the law from which the challenged statute emerged. Remedial laws are to be interpreted in the light of previous experience and prior enactments.
United States v. Congress of Indus. Orgs., 335 U.S. 106, 112-13, 68 S.Ct. 1349, 1352-53, 92 L.Ed. 1849 (1948). Because this cáse turns on the Council’s intent in enacting the MMSAA, a few words are in order regarding the circumstances which led to the passage of this legislation.
In the autumn of 1982, the citizens of the District of Columbia were “in an angry frame of mind” towards drug dealers and armed criminals. Lemon v. United States, 564 A.2d 1368, 1379 (D.C.1989). On September 14 of that year, by a vote of 72% to 28%, they adopted an initiative providing, inter alia, for mandatory minimum penalties for defendants who distributed controlled substances or who possessed such substances with the intent to distribute them. See D.C.Law 4^166, §§ 9 & 10, 30 D.C.R. 1082 (Mar. 9, 1983), codified in D.C.Code § 33-541(e) (1993) (repealed by the MMSAA). The mandatory minimum sentencing scheme for which the voters east their ballots was obviously designed to ensure that drug dealers would be severely punished. Judges were to be precluded from thwarting the popular will by exercising excessive leniency.
It soon became apparent, however, that the new statute would not bring about the consistency and severity in sentencing that its proponents may have anticipated. Because a defendant had no incentive to plead guilty if his sentence was pre-ordained, prosecutors routinely “sweetened the pie.” They permitted many drug traffickers to plead guilty to “attempted distribution,” or even to “attempted possession with intent to distribute,” where the evidence showed that the “attempt” was actually a completed act. See, e.g., United States v. Rogers, 115 Daily Wash.L.Rptr. 221 (D.C.Super.Ct. Feb. 4, 1987). The mandatory sentences for which citizens had voted were not applicable to “attempts,” id., and many drug dealers thus continued to escape serving mandatory minimum time.
*93One consequence of the introduction of mandatory minimum sentences was that the discretion in sentencing previously exercised by judges was now exercised by prosecutors in their charging and plea-bargaining decisions. Many drug dealers received sentences far less severe than the mandatory minimum because prosecutors simply charged them with, or permitted them to plead guilty to, less serious offenses. Those defendants who went to trial and were convicted, however, necessarily received mandatory minimum sentences, even where a particular defendant’s role in the distribution scheme was relatively minor.
In March 1994, Councilmembers William P. Lightfoot and Harry L. Thomas introduced Bill No. 10-617, in which they proposed, among other things, to repeal mandatory minimum sentences for unarmed drug offenders. The bill was referred to the Council’s Committee on the Judiciary, which received testimony and other evidence from a substantial number of witnesses, most of whom focused on the injustices which were said to have characterized the eleven-year regime of mandatory minimum sentencing.
The testimony of Mary Jane DeFrank, a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union, was evidently quite influential with the Council.2 Ms. DeFrank testified that after mandatory minimum sentences became the “weapon of choice” in the “war on drugs,” “justice became a casualty in the process.” She quoted Chief Justice Rehnquist to the effect that federal mandatory minimum sentences “impose unduly harsh punishment for first time offenders — particularly for ‘mules’ who play only a minor role in drug distribution schemes.”3 Ms. DeFrank told of a number of specific cases, in the District and elsewhere, in which disproportionately harsh sentences had caused extreme hardship to individual defendants and their families.
Other witnesses described in detail the effect of mandatory minimum sentences on women and children4 and on racial and ethnic minorities.5 Noting that the District has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the United States, the executive director of the D.C. Prisoners’ Legal Services Project described the serious overcrowding of our prisons which has resulted from the influx of non-violent drug offenders. He especially emphasized the impact of mandatory minimum sentences on prisoners with medical problems.6 Judge Henry F. Greene of the Superior Court testified that many individuals were effectively coerced into pleading guilty because “only those defendants coura*94geous — or foolhardy — enough to assert their constitutional right to a jury trial at the risk of receiving a mandatory minimum sentence of at least four years if convicted choose to reject a government plea offer....”
The members of the Council were also aware that, if the MMSAA was enacted, those drug dealers who merited severe punishment would not escape it. As the Director of the PDS explained, the proposed legislation
does not eliminate stiff mandatory sentences for crimes of violence, or even drug offenses committed while armed with a gun.
[I]t does not prevent District of Columbia Superior Court judges from imposing long sentences for drug offenses in appropriate cases. Judges retain the power to impose sentences which require the defendant to serve as much time as the current mandatory minimum sentences, or even longer. If the proposed legislation were adopted, a judge could still sentence a person convicted of a felony drug offense to a maximum term of as much as thirty years.
The problem, as perceived by a number of the witnesses before the Council, was that under then existing law, defendants whose role in the distribution of drugs was minimal were nevertheless subject to unreasonably harsh (for them) mandatory minimum penalties.
United States Attorney (formerly Superior Court Judge) Eric H. Holder, Jr. testified that although he had “previously expressed some reservations with regard to the wisdom of mandatory minimum sentences in drug cases for low-level street dealers,” he had come to believe that the existence of such sentences “forces defendants to consider seriously the possibility of early treatment as an alternative to trial.” Judge Holder suggested that “[i]f changes are to be made, we believe that only the length of those sentences should be examined.” A representative of the Office of Corporation Counsel also opposed “the wholesale elimination of all mandatory minimum penalties for drug dealing regardless of the seriousness of the offense. ...”
On October 26, 1994, the Judiciary Committee issued its Report on the proposed legislation. Quoting extensively from the testimony of the ACLU representative, the Council stated that
[tjhese [mandatory minimum] sentences take away the discretionary power of judges. Judges are thus forced to impose harsh mandatory sentences on undeserving individuals without the latitude to consider a defendant’s background, individual culpability, or likelihood of recidivism — facts which could support a lesser sentence. Some judges have resorted to refusing to hear drug cases because they cannot conscionably sentence a first-time offender to a lengthy prison term.
Another problem is the use of mandatory-minimum sentences as a threat by prosecutors to get defendants to plead to a lesser offense. A defendant charged with a non-violent drug offense who asserts his or her right to a jury trial does so at the risk of serving [a minimum of] four to ten years in jail if convicted. The discretion in sentencing rests with the prosecutor, not the judge.
Additionally, mandatory-minimum sentences result in a large percentage of the District’s youth being locked up for long periods of time at great expense to the District.
Counoil of the District of Columbia, Committee on the Judiciary Report on Bill No. 10-617 at 1 (Oct. 26, 1994) (emphasis added).
Apparently in response to the views of the United States Attorney and the Corporation Counsel, the Judiciary Committee recommended that mandatory minimum sentences be shortened rather than eliminated. The Council, however, rejected this compromise, and voted instead to abolish such sentences altogether for unarmed drug offenders. As enacted, Section 3 of the MMSAA simply states that D.C.Code § 33 — 541(c), which prescribed mandatory minimum sentences, “is repealed.” Section 4 provides that the Act shall take effect following Congressional review and after publication in the District of *95Columbia Register. The MMSAA became effective on May 25,1995.7

B. The Council’s Intent.

In the context of the history described above, I now turn to the decisive task before us, namely, to ascertain whether the Council intended, in enacting the MMSAA, to require judges to impose on the defendants in these cases the mandatory minimum sentences required by statutory provisions which it had evidently found to be unjust and discriminatory, and which it had therefore repealed. “The paramount rule in construing statutes is to give effect to the intention of the [l]egislature.” Janof v. Newsom, 60 App.D.C. 291, 293, 53 F.2d 149, 151 (1931).
In ascertaining legislative intent, we must first look to the words which the .Council used, for “the proposition that plain statutory language generally trumps other considerations is hardly subject to challenge.” Luck, supra, 617 A.2d at 512. “The literal words of [the MMSAA] are to be read in the light of the purpose of the statute taken as a whole, and are to be given a sensible construction and one that would not work an obvious injustice.” Metzler v. Edwards, 53 A.2d 42, 44 (D.C.1947) (footnotes omitted).
Because the MMSAA states that its provisions shall become effective upon publication in the Register (which occurred on May 25, 1995), and because each of these defendants was sentenced after that date, the statutory language, read literally, supports the defense claim that the new sentencing options approved by the Council were available to each trial judge at the time of sentencing.
[W]here an ameliorative statute takes the form of a reduction of punishment for a particular crime, the law is settled that the lesser penalty may be meted out in all cases decided after the effective date of the enactment, even though the underlying act may have been committed before that date.
People v. Oliver, 1 N.Y.2d 152, 151 N.Y.S.2d 367, 373, 134 N.E.2d 197, 201 (1956) (Fuld, J.).
There can be no doubt, in light of the statutory language and history which I have recited, that the MMSAA was ameliorative in character. Although, under the new statute, trial judges retained the authority to impose the harsh sentences previously mandated by law, the MMSAA provided them with alternative sentencing options for those defendants whose individual level of culpability and other circumstances, in the judge’s view, made less severe punishment appropriate. The Council, in other words, found the indiscriminate imposition of mandatory minimum sentences for every defendant to be unjust, and it replaced mandatory sentencing with a more flexible approach under which the sentencing judge may exercise his or her discretion to impose a lesser penalty where an individual defendant deserves one.
If the basic purpose of the MMSAA was ameliorative — and the majority does not contend otherwise — it strikes me as patently incongruous to suggest that the same Councilmembers who found the mandatory sentences unfair to some defendants nevertheless intended to require — not permit, but require — trial judges to continue to impose such sentences after the effective date of the Act, without permitting any inquiry into whether an individual defendant merited more lenient treatment. My colleagues, armed with what they regard as the dispos-itive general savings statutes, have barely paused to inquire why humane and fair-minded legislators, who had enacted an ameliorative law in order to do away with what they obviously perceived to be an unjust and discriminatory status quo, would nevertheless insist that potentially unfair sentences must continue to be imposed on persons in the position of these defendants, and also on similarly situated defendants who had AIDS, or whose families were in distress, or who would otherwise suffer undeserved hardship.8
*96The majority’s approach effectively rejects the validity of a common-sense proposition which distinguished judges in other jurisdictions have endorsed as obvious. As the Supreme Court of California explained in In re Estrada, 68 Cal.2d 740, 48 Cal.Rptr. 172, 408 P.2d 948 (1965),
[w]hen the Legislature amends a statute so as to lessen the punishment it has obviously expressly determined that its former penalty was too severe and that a lighter punishment is proper as punishment for the commission of the prohibited act. It is an inevitable inference that the Legislature must have intended that the new statute imposing the new lighter penalty now deemed to be sufficient should apply to every case to which it constitutionally could apply.
Id. at 175, 408 P.2d at 951 (emphasis added); accord, State v. Pardon, 272 N.C. 72, 157 S.E.2d 698, 702 (1967) (quoting Estrada). The New York Court of Appeals has likewise found it “safe to assume, as the modem rule does, that it was the legislative design that the lighter penalty should be imposed in all cases that subsequently reach the courts,” regardless of when the underlying offense was committed. Oliver, supra, 151 N.Y.S.2d at 373, 134 N.E.2d at 202 (emphasis added); accord, Pardon, supra, 157 S.E.2d at 702 (quoting Oliver). In the present case, the inference that the Council intended these defendants to enjoy the benefits of the MMSAA is just as “obvious” and “inevitable” as in Estrada and just as “safe” as in Oliver. See also State v. Macarelli, 118 R.I. 693, 375 A.2d 944, 947 (1977) (holding that refusal to apply ameliorative change to defendant whose ease has not been reduced to final judgment “would amount to nothing more than arbitrary retribution in contravention of the obvious legislative purpose behind the mitigation of the penalty ”). (Emphasis added).
A substantial number of the highest courts of other jurisdictions have adopted the views expressed in Estrada, Oliver, Pardon, and Macarelli, namely, that legislators who have enacted ameliorative changes in sentencing statutes intended these changes to apply, at least, to all defendants sentenced after the effective date of the new provisions. See, e.g., People v. Schultz, 435 Mich. 517, 460 N.W.2d 505, 511 (1990); People v. Behlog, 74 N.Y.2d 237, 544 N.Y.S.2d 804, 806-07, 543 N.E.2d 69, 71 (1989); State v. Cummings, 386 N.W.2d 468, 471-72 (N.D.1986); State v. Tapp, 26 Utah 2d 392, 490 P.2d 334, 335-36 (1971).9 The basis for adopting that reasoning is obvious: the legislature is presumed to have acted rationally, and there is no legitimate reason for continuing to impose penalties which the legislature has rejected as excessive or unfair. As Judge Fuld stated for the court in Oliver,
According to [modern] theories [of criminal justice], the punishment or treatment of criminal offenders is directed toward one or more of three ends: (1) to discourage and act as a deterrent upon future criminal activity, (2) to confine the offender so that he may not harm society and (3) to correct and rehabilitate the offender _ A legislative mitigation of the penalty for a particular crime represents a legislative judgment that the lesser penalty or the different treatment is sufficient to meet the legitimate ends of the criminal law. Nothing is to be gained by imposing the more severe penalty after such a pronouncement; the excess in punishment can, by hypothesis, serve no purpose other than to satisfy a desire for vengeance.[10]
*97151 N.Y.S.2d at 373, 134 N.E.2d at 201-02; accord, Macarelo, supra, 375 A.2d at 947 (quoting Oliver); Estrada, supra, 48 Cal.Rptr. at 176, 408 P.2d at 952 (same).11
Requiring trial judges in these cases to impose mandatory minimum sentences does not serve any of the purposes of the criminal law identified in Oliver. These sentences could not discourage or deter, for a wrongdoer who commits such an offense after the effective date of the Act can no longer receive a mandatory minimum term. Confinement to protect society is a valid penological goal, but the Council has rejected the notion that mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug offenders are necessary to achieve that purpose. Incarceration of a defendant for a period longer than the judge believes that the defendant deserves cannot reasonably be viewed as rehabilitative. Assuming, arguen-do, that retribution is a legitimate consideration, it makes little sense to punish these defendants with inflexible severity, regardless of their individual circumstances, when the sentence for every offense committed after May 25, 1995 will depend on a judge’s assessment of the facts of the particular defendant’s case.
It is noteworthy that Oliver and all of the other cases which I have discussed above involved savings statutes (or provisions similar to savings statutes), and that in each case, notwithstanding the existence of such a statute, the court applied an ameliorative sentencing provision to an offense committed prior to the effective date of the new enactment. The precise content of the particular statute varied from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but the decisions of the highest state courts did not turn on these variations. Indeed, the Supreme Court of Michigan held that, in that jurisdiction, defendants were entitled to be sentenced under an ameliorative statute which was enacted subsequent to the dates of their offenses, but which became effective prior to sentencing, notwithstanding the existence of a Michigan general savings statute substantially identical, word for word, to the federal provision on which the government relies in the appeals now before the court. Schultz, supra, 460 N.W.2d at 509-12.
My colleagues, however, reject these cases as erroneously decided. They insist instead that the federal and local general savings statutes control the proper disposition of these appeals, and that they trump all other considerations. I disagree.

C. The Savings Statutes.

(1) Historical origins.

“At common law, the repeal of a criminal statute abated all prosecutions which had not reached final disposition in the highest court authorized to review them.” Bradley v. United States, 410 U.S. 605, 607, 93 S.Ct. *981151, 1154, 35 L.Ed.2d 528 (1973) (citations omitted). As Chief Justice Marshall explained many years ago in Yeaton v. United States, 9 U.S. (5 Cranch) 281, 3 L.Ed. 101 (1809),
it has long been settled, on general principles, that after the expiration or repeal of a law, no penalty can be enforced, nor punishment inflicted, for violations of the law committed while it was in force, unless some special provision be made for that purpose by statute.
Id at 283; accord, United States v. Chambers, 291 U.S. 217, 223, 54 S.Ct. 434, 435, 78 L.Ed. 763 (1934). This rule of abatement applied even where a statute was repealed and re-enacted with different penalties. Bradley, supra, 410 U.S. at 607-08, 93 S.Ct. at 1154.
Under the common law rule, courts were often faced with an anomalous result. Where a statute was amended to impose a different punishment, a defendant could not be prosecuted under the earlier version, because it had been repealed, or under the later one, because such a prosecution would have been barred by the Constitution’s Ex Post Facto Clause. See Schultz, supra, 460 N.W.2d at 510. A defendant could thus escape punishment even though his conduct was proscribed both by the original statute and by its amended version. Id.
There were various means available to avoid the incongruous and unjust consequences which sometimes resulted from the common law rule. The legislature could, for example, include in each repealing enactment a specific clause stating that prosecutions of offenses under the repealed statute were not to be abated. See Bradley, supra, 410 U.S. at 608, 93 S.Ct. at 1154 (citation omitted). In order to obviate the need to insert such a clause in every repealing statute, however, Congress and many state legislatures enacted general savings statutes such as those on which the government relies in this case. See Note, Today’s Law and Yesterday’s Crime: Retroactive Application of Ameliorative Criminal Legislation, 121 U.Pa.L.Rev. 120, 121-30 (1972). The MMSAA contains no individual provision concerning abatement, and the present appeals turn on the effect of the federal and District of Columbia general savings statutes.
The federal provision, now codified in 1 U.S.C. § 109, was enacted in 1871 in order to preclude the technical abatement of a prosecution for an offense that was committed before the criminal statute was repealed. Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, 379 U.S. 306, 314, 85 S.Ct. 384, 390, 13 L.Ed.2d 300 (1964); see also Warden v. Marrero, 417 U.S. 653, 660-61 & n. 11, 94 S.Ct. 2532, 2536-37 & n. 11, 41 L.Ed.2d 383 (1974). It provides that the
[rjepeal 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 shall so expressly provide, and such statute shall be treated as still remaining in force for the purpose of sustaining any proper action or prosecution for the enforcement of such penalty, forfeiture, or liability.
1 U.S.C. § 109. The District of Columbia general savings statute on which the government relies was enacted in 1990, and its provisions are substantially identical, for present purposes, to those of its federal counterpart:
The repeal of any act of the Council shall not release or extinguish any penalty, forfeiture, or liability incurred pursuant to the act, and the act shall be treated as remaining in force for the purpose of sustaining any proper action or prosecution for the enforcement of any penalty, forfeiture, or liability, unless the repealing act expressly provides for the release or extin-guishment of any penalty, forfeiture, or liability.
D.C.Code § 49-304(a) (1995).

(2) Principles of construction.

The general savings statutes on which the government relies are in derogation of the common law. “It is an established rule of statutory construction that statutes changing the common law are to be strictly construed.” Jones v. Jones, 63 App.D.C. 373, 374, 72 F.2d 829, 830 (1934). Indeed, “no statute is to be construed as altering the rules of the common law, farther than its words plainly import.” McCarthy v. McCarthy, 20 App.D.C. *99195, 202 (1902) (error dismissed, 189 U.S. 515, 23 S.Ct. 850, 47 L.Ed. 925 (1903)) (citing Shaw v. Railroad Co., 101 U.S. 557, 565, 25 L.Ed. 892 (1879)); see also Monroe v. Foreman, 540 A.2d 736, 739 (D.C.1988) (quoting Shaw). “It being an exception to the common law, and this being a criminal case, [the federal savings] statute must be strictly construed.” United States v. Auerbach, 68 F.Supp. 776, 778 (S.D.Cal.1946). Accordingly, the mandatory minimum sentences in these cases can be sustained only if that result is plainly compelled by the statutory language.
Moreover, if there is any significant ambiguity in the general savings statutes with respect to their effect upon mandatory minimum penalties, then the rule of lenity applies. Bifulco, supra, 447 U.S. at 387, 100 S.Ct. at 2252; see also authorities cited at note 8, supra. Especially in a case like this, in which these defendants and many others face lengthy and potentially unmerited incarceration, we may not construe the savings statutes as compelling the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences unless the Council has clearly stated that this result was intended. Bass, supra, 404 U.S. at 348, 92 S.Ct. at 522-23; see also Koon v. United States, — U.S. —, —, 116 S.Ct. 2035, 2044, 135 L.Ed.2d 392 (1996) (recognizing “the wisdom, even the necessity, of sentencing procedures that take into account individual circumstances”).
With due respect to my colleagues in the majority, I find altogether implausible the notion that the general savings statutes “plainly” mean that mandatory minimum sentences must be imposed on defendants sentenced after the effective date of the MMSAA. Indeed, the language of these statutes has to be stretched well beyond its ordinary meaning to accommodate my colleagues’ reading of them. In addition, the notion that savings statutes trump all other indicia of legislative intent appears to me to be at odds with common sense. If the legislators in fact intended that non-violent drug dealers should not be subject to mandatory minimum sentences, that intent ought not to be “flicked aside,” cf. maj. op. at 47, solely because they failed to dot their i’s or cross their t’s.

(S) “Release or extinguish. ”

The government’s reliance in these appeals on the federal and local general savings statutes rests entirely on its theory that the MMSAA “released” or “extinguished” the penalties which applied under prior law. If there has been no release or extinguishment, then neither of these statutes has any application,12 and the sentencing judge must apply the law in effect at the time of sentencing. See United States v. Schooner Peggy, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 103, 110, 2 L.Ed. 49 (1801); Oliver, supra, 151 N.Y.S.2d at 372-73, 134 N.E.2d at 201. The majority does not contest this proposition.
Two of the defendants in these eases— Steven Holiday and Frederick R. Burgess— were convicted of distribution of crack cocaine. A third defendant, James H. Palmer was convicted of distribution of dilaudid. It is undisputed that prior to the effective date of the MMSAA, the mandatory minimum sentence for the offenses committed by each of these men was four years. See D.C.Code § 33-541(c)(l)(A-l)(A-2).
Jae Hoa Park was convicted of possession of powdered cocaine with intent to distribute it (PWID). As a result of the statutory quirk discussed in Part II of this opinion, Ms. Park was subject to, and received, a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. See D.C.Code § 33-541(c)(l)(A-2)(ii) (1993).
Contrary to the assumption on which the government’s argument rests, the MMSAA was not designed to “release” or “extinguish” the penalties to which these defendants were subject. After the effective date of the Act, the maximum penalty for all four defendants was imprisonment for thirty years. See *100D.C.Code § 33-541(a)(2)(A) (1993). This means that, under the District’s felony sentencing practice, each defendant could be sentenced to serve a minimum of ten and a maximum of thirty years. See D.C.Code § 24-203(a) (1996) (minimum period of incarceration in indeterminate felony sentence shall not exceed one-third of maximum sentence). In the cases of Holiday, Burgess and Palmer, each sentencing judge was thus authorized under the MMSAA to impose minimum terms of incarceration two and one half times as long as the previous mandatory sentence. The judge in Ms. Park’s case was authorized under the MMSAA to send her to prison for a minimum term twice as long as the mandatory minimum established by prior law.
In my view, the sentencing court’s retention of the authority to impose sentences far more severe than the previous mandatory minimum terms conclusively refutes the notion that the prior penalties have been “extinguished” or “released.”13 A penalty cannot reasonably be said to have been extinguished if the sentencing judge can continue to impose it, and if he or she may even order a defendant’s incarceration for twice as long or longer than the former mandatory minimum period.14 A sentence of from four to twelve years is no longer called a “mandatory minimum” sentence, but a judge can still make a defendant serve it. The word “release” is eoncededly more ambiguous than “extinguish,” but the savings statutes assuredly do not plainly require the preservation of mandatory minimum sentencing authority. Cf. Bass, supra, 404 U.S. at 348, 92 S.Ct. at 522-23; McCarthy, supra, 20 App.D.C. at 202.15
*101The present case may profitably be compared -with Hurwitz v. United States, 60 App.D.C. 298, 53 F.2d 552 (1931), which the government characterizes as binding authority. In Hurwitz, a case involving the prohibition laws, the Jones Act, which was in force at the time of the commission of the offense, authorized a penalty of imprisonment for five years and a fine of $10,000. An amendment to the Jones Act which became effective , a few days before Hurwitz was sentenced reduced the maximum penalty to imprisonment for six months and a fine of $500. The court held that in accordance with the federal savings statute, Hurwitz was properly sentenced under the earlier and more severe provisions. In Hurwitz, however, the amending legislation plainly extinguished the penalties authorized by the Jones Act at the time Hurwitz committed the crime, for a prison sentence of more than six months, or a fine of more than $500, could no longer be imposed under the statute as amended. This represents a dramatic contrast to the present case, in which the judge retains the authority to impose not only the same period of imprisonment available under the mandatory minimum sentencing scheme, but also a far longer term.
As a practical matter, the MMSAA effectively preserved, and did not release or extinguish, penalties previously in effect. Indeed, in urging its enactment, the proponents of the statute pointed out to the Councilmem-bers that the MMSAA would not prevent the imposition of long sentences in appropriate cases. See page 94, supra. The essence of the MMSAA was to provide judges with additional discretionary sentencing options, which would allow the punishment to fit the crime and the offender, and would thus avoid injustice in individual eases. To me, it is simply incongruous to suggest that these savings statutes, which were designed primarily to prevent technical abatements and the absurd consequences that could sometimes flow from the common law rule, should now be construed as “saving” judges from their right to exercise sentencing options which the legislature has effectively found to be essential in order to avoid injustice.16

*102
(k) Legislative intent as controlling.

Even if the MMSAA could reasonably be construed as “releasing” or “extinguishing” penalties applicable under prior law — and I do not believe that it can — I still could not agree with the majority’s disposition. My colleagues accord more or less conclusive weight to the general savings statutes, even where, as here, all other indicia of legislative intent point in the opposite direction. The courts have generally declined to attach controlling significance to the literal terms of savings statutes and similar enactments where to do so would defeat the discernable will of the legislature.17
I begin with a dose of reality. As Justice Schaefer explained for the Supreme Court of Illinois in People v. Bilderback, 9 Ill.2d 175, 137 N.E.2d 389 (1956), a general savings statute
is at best the statement of a present legislature as to the intention of a future one. It is so easy to show that the statute, when applicable, has often been overlooked by lawyers and judges that it is hard to believe that legislators have always had it in mind. Without looking beyond our own borders, it is clear that here, at least, such a statute has not been an effective substitute for individualized statements of legislative purpose.
Id., 137 N.E.2d at 393. If only for the very reason “that it is hard to believe that legislators have always had [the general savings statute] in mind,”18 id, the existence of such *103a statute cannot provide conclusive guidance as to true legislative intent. If “the Federal Rules [of Civil Procedure] reject the approach that pleading is a game of skill in which one misstep by counsel may be decisive as to the outcome,” Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 48, 78 S.Ct. 99, 103, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957), then surely, a fortiori, we cannot accept the notion that the Council’s perhaps accidental failure to include in the MMSAA an “express provision” of the kind contemplated by the general savings statutes automatically dooms these defendants and others to lengthy, unnecessary, unintended, and in some cases undeserved terms of incarceration.
In general, the courts — including the Supreme Court, see Hertz v. Woodman, 218 U.S. 205, 30 S.Ct. 621, 54 L.Ed. 1001 (1910)— have treated general savings statutes not as announcing an inflexible rule of law, but rather as providing “a rule of construction which is to be “read and construed as a part of all subsequent repealing statutes, in order to effect the will and intent of Congress.” Id. at 217, 30 S.Ct. at 623 (emphasis added; citations omitted). In Great Northern Ry. Co. v. United States, 208 U.S. 452, 28 S.Ct. 313, 52 L.Ed. 567 (1908), on which my colleagues claim to rely, maj. op. at 79-80 n. 44, the Supreme Court expressly stated that the provisions of what is now 1 U.S.C. § 109 “cannot justify a disregard of the will of Congress as manifested either expressly or by necessary implication in a subsequent enactment.” Id. at 465, 28 S.Ct. at 316.
A general savings statute, like a legislative presumption against retroactivity,
is not an end in itself. Like any rule of construction, [it] is subservient to the goal of statutory interpretation: to ascertain and effectuate legislative intent.
Cummings, supra, 386 N.W.2d at 471 (citations omitted). The Supreme Court of California made the point effectively in Estrada, supra:
That rule of construction, however, is not a strait-jacket. Where the legislature has not set forth in so many words what it intended, the rule of construction should not be followed blindly in complete disregard of factors that may give a clue to the legislative intent. It is to be applied only after, considering all pertinent factors, it is determined that it is impossible to ascertain the legislative intent.
48 Cal.Rptr. at 176, 408 P.2d at 952 (emphasis added).19
In Behlog, supra, Judge Hancock, writing for the unanimous New York Court of Appeals, noted that savings clauses were enacted principally to avoid the incongruous results of a common law rule which allowed offenders to go unpunished when a criminal statute was repealed or when the punishment was increased. 544 N.Y.S.2d at 806-07, 543 N.E.2d at 71. He explained that where the legislature has enacted an ameliorative statute,
[t]he anomaly which prompted the enactment of the savings clauses does not exist. Absent some valid reason to require the stricter penalty, the ‘savings clauses’ should not be used to mete out the harsher sentence.
Id., 544 N.Y.S.2d at 807, 543 N.E.2d at 71-72 (citations omitted).
In my opinion, it is our obligation in this case to avoid the potential analytical “straitjacket,” Estrada, supra, 48 Cal.Rptr. at 176, 408 P.2d at 952, into which the government’s argument seeks to force us. In attempting to ascertain the Council’s intent in enacting the MMSAA, we must certainly include in our calculus the provisions of the two general savings statutes, as well as the failure of the Council to include any express provision applying the new sentencing scheme to cases pending at the time the Act became effective. We would do well, however, to be just a bit “earthy” about the problem, and to bear in mind Justice Schaefer’s wise observations in Yensavage regarding legislative realities.
*104In the final analysis, I am satisfied, for the reasons stated earlier in this opinion, that the legislative record in this case demonstrates the Council’s intent that mandatory minimum sentences not be imposed on these defendants. I believe that the state court cases, beginning with Oliver and ending with Schultz and Behlog, have by far the best of the argument, and that in the absence of binding contrary precedent, we should follow their teaching.
I add one further thought. Our decisions have consequences. There is more at stake in this case than in most. If the government ultimately prevails, then the result for the defendants, for their families, and for others similarly situated will be truly tragic. Holiday and the other defendants will be incarcerated for a very long time. This will happen even though each of the three sentencing judges has indicated that he or she would not impose the mandatory minimum term if a less severe sentence were legally authorized. Ill defendants may die in prison, more children of minor drug dealers will suffer unnecessarily, and racial and ethnic minorities will continue to bear disproportionately the brunt of a policy which the Council has rejected.
If the Council intended these results, then judicial inquiry is at an end. Courts may not substitute their own views for those of the legislature. But in assessing the Council’s intent, it is significant that, so far as I can discern, this protracted mandatory incarceration will serve no useful penological purpose. There will be no deterrence, no relevant incapacitation, no rehabilitation, and only the most selective retribution. Severe punishment will be imposed primarily because, a century and a quarter ago, Congress passed a general savings statute20 which, in the majority’s opinion, tells us in advance what the 1994 Council intended.
No judge knows everything. I certainly do not. Perhaps the Council intended the result which the majority now ordains. Because of what is at stake, however, I venture to ask of those who reject my interpretation whether they are sure. I suggest that if there is any real doubt — if the statutes can fairly be read either way — then this case must be decided in favor of allowing the judge to sentence each defendant on the merits of that defendant’s own circumstances.
II.
MS. PARK’S EXTRA YEAR
The majority also upholds against constitutional challenge the five-year mandatory minimum sentence which Jae Hoa Park received for possession of 13 grams of powdered cocaine with intent to distribute it (PWID). If the contraband in question had been crack cocaine (cocaine base), a far more addictive and dangerous substance, then Ms. Park’s minimum sentence would have been only four years. In my opinion, the imposition of the fifth year of Ms. Park’s mandatory minimum sentence deprives her of liberty without due process of law. I can find no rational basis whatever for requiring her to serve a mandatory additional year in prison.
An examination of the Omnibus Narcotic and Abusive Drug Interdiction Amendment Act of 1990 (ONADIAA),21 and of its legislative history,22 persuades me that, in all probability, the five-year mandatory minimum for minor dealers in powdered cocaine was included in the statute unintentionally, perhaps as a result of administrative error. If the extra year was intended, it is unconstitutional.

A Powdered Cocaine and Crack Cocaine.

The government cannot and does not dispute the proposition that crack cocaine is a great deal more dangerous than the powdered form of the drug. “Crack is far more addictive than cocaine. It is far more accessible due to its relatively low cost. And it has experienced an explosion of popularity.” *105United States v. Cyrus, 281 U.S.App.D.C. 440, 443, 890 F.2d 1245, 1248 (1989).
The United States Sentencing Guidelines treat distribution of one gram of crack as being equivalent, for purposes of sentencing, to the distribution of 100 grams of powdered cocaine. See, e.g., United States v. Lawrence, 951 F.2d 751, 754 (7th Cir.1991). The validity of such dramatically disparate treatment has been consistently sustained by the courts, for
Members of Congress considered cocaine base to be more dangerous to society than cocaine because of crack’s potency, its highly addictive nature, its affordability, and its increasing prevalence. Senator D’Amato addressed specifically the reasoning underlying the 100 to 1 ratio’:
‘Because crack is so potent, drug dealers need to carry much smaller quantities of crack than of cocaine power. By treating 1,000 grams of freebase cocaine no more seriously than 1,000 grams of cocaine powder, which is far less powerful than freebase, current law provides a loophole that actually encourages drug dealers to sell the more deadly and addictive substance, and lets them sell thousands of doses without facing the maximum penalty possible.’
132 Cong.Rec. S8092 (daily ed. June 20, 1986).
United States v. Buckner, 894 F.2d 975, 978-79 (8th Cir.1990) (footnote omitted); see also id. n. 9; accord, Lawrence, supra, 951 F.2d at 754.
In enacting the ONADIAA, the Council of the District of Columbia likewise recognized that crack is more dangerous than powdered cocaine. Under that legislation, a defendant who distributes 50 or more grams of crack is a “major dealer.” By contrast, a trafficker who sells less than 500 grams of powdered cocaine is treated as a “minor dealer.” See D.C.Code § 33-541(c)(l)(A-2)(ii). There is only one explanation for this ten-to-one ratio; the Council knew that a small amount of crack can do a great deal more harm than a like amount of cocaine powder.

B. The ONADIAA and “Tiered” Sentencing.

The ONADIAA was enacted in substantial part in order to provide penalties for major drug traffickers which are more severe than those imposed upon minor dealers. In addressing the “background and need” for the proposed legislation, the Judiciary Committee stated:
One problem with the original mandatory minimum initiative (D.C.Law 4-166) was that it treated all drug traffickers the same, regardless of the amount of drugs involved.
ONADIAA REPORT at 2. The bill therefore “establishe[d] a new tiered structure by distinguishing between a major and a minor dealer for drug distribution convictions.” Id. at 3.

C. The Incongruity of Ms. Park’s Extra Year.

In order to explain the logical and constitutional problems presented by Ms. Park’s sentence, I now reproduce the table which Judge Ferren has helpfully included in the opinion of the court. See maj. op. at 88.
Crack Cocaine Cocaine Powder Other Narcotics
Major Dealer (50+ grams) Major Dealer (500+ grams) Major Dealer (500+ grams)
1st offense 5 years 5 years 5 years
2nd or 10 years 10 years 10 years subsequent offense
*106Crack Cocaine Cocaine Powder Other Narcotics
Minor Dealer Minor Dealer Minor Dealer
(Less than 50 grams) (Less than 500 grams) (Less than 500 grams)
1st offense 4 years 5 years 4 years
2nd offense 7 years 8 years 7 years
3rd or subsequent offense 10 years 10 years 10 years
The careful reader will discern that the penalties reflected in this table are, for the most part, logical and consistent with one another. Major dealers are punished more severely than minor dealers, and a recidivist will receive more time for repeating his nefarious misdeeds. The one glaring exception is the penalty for distribution of cocaine powder. For a first offense, a major dealer in cocaine powder receives a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. Remarkably, however, a first-time minor dealer receives exactly the same minimum sentence.
Compare this treatment with the provisions for major and minor dealers in other drugs. A major dealer in crack cocaine, or in other narcotics, receives a five year mandatory minimum. His or her “minor dealer” counterpart, however, receives only four years.
With respect to crack cocaine and other narcotics, Judge Ferren’s table confirms the sentencing scheme as described by the Judiciary Committee. Major dealers receive an extra year in prison. With respect to powdered cocaine, on the other hand, the distinction between major and minor dealers — the raison d’ tre of the ONADIAA — has been abandoned or ignored. Everyone who distributes powdered cocaine receives the same mandatory minimum, regardless of the amount distributed. With respect to this single drug, the conditions that caused the Council to enact the ONADIAA continue unabated — identical sentences remain for major and minor dealers, contrary to the stated legislative design.
The second incongruity of the sentencing scheme for cocaine powder is that the minor dealer in that particular drug receives a more severe mandatory minimum sentence than his counterpart who sells far more addictive and far more dangerous crack cocaine. The Judiciary Committee Report contains no explanation for this unexpected result, which translates into an odd proposition: “the more dangerous the contraband, the lighter the penalty.” I know of no rational explanation for such a rule.
Human beings are finite creatures. They make mistakes. I believe that this is what happened here.23 I consider it highly improbable that the Councilmembers intentionally ignored the difference between major and minor dealers in powdered cocaine. I likewise do not believe that they really meant to impose a more severe mandatory minimum sentence on the seller of a less dangerous drug than on the distribution of a more dangerous one. Rather, I suspect that the wrong number may have been written into the statute as a result of somebody’s error.24 *107If the Council did intend the anomalous results which the statutory numbers suggest, then in my view the Constitution has been transgressed.

D. Ms. Park’s Constitutional Challenge.

In this jurisdiction, as in others, legislative enactments are protected by a presumption of constitutionality. Hornstein, supra, 560 A.2d at 533. The question is whether Ms. Park has overcome that presumption by showing, beyond a reasonable doubt, id., that her sentence violates the Fifth Amendment. Ms. Park’s burden is a formidable one, but I am satisfied that she has met it.
Ms. Park contends in essence that the sentence imposed upon her has deprived her of liberty without due process of law, in violation of the Fifth Amendment.25 “The guaranty of due process demands only that a law shall not be unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious, and that the means selected shall have a reasonable and substantial relation to the object sought to be obtained.” Lapides v. Clark, 85 U.S.App.D.C. 101, 102, 176 F.2d 619, 620, cert. denied, 338 U.S. 860, 70 S.Ct. 101, 94 L.Ed. 527 (1949); see also Gibson v. United States, 602 A.2d 117, 119-20 (D.C.1992) (applying rational basis test to allegation that defendant’s sentence violated equal protection principles). The test, then, is one of rationality.
“[O]ur determination of the existence of a rational basis for the distinction contained in the statute is limited to whether any state of facts either known or which could reasonably be assumed affords support for it.” Gibson, supra, 602 A.2d at 120 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The legislature is not required to articulate its reasons for enacting the challenged provision; if the reasons for the legislative action are plausible, judicial inquiry is at an end. United States R.R. Retirement Bd. v. Fritz, 449 U.S. 166, 179, 101 S.Ct. 453, 461-62, 66 L.Ed.2d 368 (1980); Bookman v. United States, 516 A.2d 923, 928 (D.C.1986) (per curiam) (Ferren, J., concurring in the result). Conversely, if the reasons for the Council’s actions are not plausible — if the legislation lacks a rational basis — then it does not pass constitutional muster.

E. The Government’s Justification.

The ONADIAA contains no explanation of the extra year for powdered cocaine. In its brief, however, the government hypothesizes that
the Council rationally could have believed that small dealers in cocaine powder are less likely than small dealers in cocaine base to be addicts who sell simply to support their habits. Thus, the Council could conclude, low-level dealers in cocaine base generally do not deserve the more severe punishment due low-level dealers in cocaine powder.
Converting understatement into an art form, my colleagues in the majority say that the government’s argument seems “strained.” Maj. op. at 89. I would have used a more emphatic adjective.
The government’s position is based on the notion that the Council decided, in the ONA-DIAA, to treat the distribution of small quantities of a less addictive substance more severely than the distribution of more dangerous ones. Such a legislative design would represent a dramatic departure from this jurisdiction’s controlled substances laws, which have always been predicated on the theory that the more dangerous the drug, the more severe the penalty. In the District, the distribution of marijuana — probably the least addictive and harmful of the drugs which have been in vogue in recent years — is a misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum of a year in prison. See D.C.Code §§ 33-541(a)(2)(D), -522. Trafficking in addictive “hard” drugs, on the other hand, e.g. heroin, PCP, and crack cocaine, is a felony punishable by incarceration for thirty years, id. § 33-541(a)(2)(A), and was subject to a man*108datory minimum until the enactment of the MMSAA.
Moreover, as I have noted, both Congress and the Council were aware that crack is more addictive and more dangerous than powdered cocaine. If the Council had really intended to punish the sale of powdered cocaine more severely, then some mention of such a radical change of direction would surely have found its way into the Judiciary Committee Report. See NOW v. Mutual of Omaha Ins. Co., 531 A.2d 274, 276 (D.C.1987). It did not.26
The government theorizes that the Council may have believed that sellers of crack cocaine are more likely than distributors of powdered cocaine, and that they should therefore be punished less severely. The “addict exception,” however, was already a part of the law of the District of Columbia before the ONADIAA was enacted. See D.C.Code § 33-541(c)(2). Sellers of crack cocaine who. qualified for the addict exception were not subject to mandatory minimum sentencing at all. Accordingly, it would make no sense to enact a lower mandatory minimum for a distributor of crack than for a seller of powdered cocaine on the theory that the former is more likely to be an addict. The qualifying addict who sold crack would not be affected by the mandatory minimum, however high or low it may be set.
In my opinion, there is nothing even approaching rationality in the government’s imaginative hypothesized “rational basis” for the incongruous treatment of crack and powdered cocaine. If, as I suspect, the Council made an administrative error, then such an error surely cannot provide the rational basis which the Constitution requires before a defendant can be arbitrarily compelled to serve an additional year in prison. If the Council did it on purpose — and I simply cannot believe that this is what occurred — then the “extra year” must fall anyway, for the only proffered explanation of it is contrary to reason.
We are dealing here with a year of Ms. Park’s life. Before she can be lawfully incarcerated for so much additional time for dealing in a less dangerous drug, some plausible reason must exist for such treatment. Plausibility cannot be manufactured by resort to imaginative hypotheses. The government’s argument fails.

F. The Remedy.

Counsel for Ms. Park asks us, in the event of a determination of unconstitutionality, to strike down in its entirety the mandatory minimum sentence for small dealers in powdered cocaine. The government persuasively argues that such a remedy is unnecessarily drastic, and that the proper remedy, in the event we find a constitutional violation, is to reduce Ms. Park’s mandatory minimum sentence to four years.27 On this limited issue, I *109agree with the government’s argument, subject of course to my view, set forth in Part I of this opinion, that no mandatory minimum sentence at all can lawfully be imposed on Ms. Park.
III.
CONCLUSION
In Lowman v. United States, 632 A.2d 88 (D.C.1993), an undercover officer approached a young woman named Katrina Lowman in the street and asked where he could purchase cocaine. Ms. Lowman led him to a dealer who sold the officer drugs. Ms. Low-man was subsequently arrested. Although there was no evidence of any coordination between Ms. Lowman and the dealer, Ms. Lowman was charged with and convicted of aiding and abetting the distribution of cocaine. This court affirmed her conviction. A majority of the court rejected Ms. Lowman’s contention that her conduct aided the officer’s possession of the drugs, a misdemeanor, rather than abetting felony distribution by someone with whom she had no connection. In light of this holding, Ms. Lowman was subject to a mandatory minimum sentence for her comparatively minor role in this transaction.28
Ms. Lowman, a mother of two young children, had tested positive for the AIDS virus. Her case was cited by the PDS Director in testimony before the Council, although the witness was apparently unaware of Ms. Low-man’s affliction. I think it fair to say that Ms. Lowman’s case presented the kind of situation which led the Council to repeal mandatory minimum sentences.
The majority’s position in this case presumes that if Ms. Lowman had committed her offense on the day before the effective date of the MMSAA, and if she had not been eligible for the addict exception, then the Council clearly intended that she must serve a mandatory minimum of four years, her illness and the plight of her children notwithstanding. My colleagues do not provide a plausible reason why a Council plainly bent on leaving the appropriate sentence to the judge’s discretion would insist on withholding that discretion after the effective date of the Act, even if the judge viewed the mandatory minimum sentence as excessive for the particular defendant before the court. The majority’s only explanation — that if someone else who committed an offense on the same day that Ms. Lowman did received an unmerited sentence, then Ms. Lowman should receive one too — unreasonably and unjustly ascribes to our legislature the canard that two (or more) wrongs make a right. My colleagues do not really argue that their decision vindicates the Council’s actual intent. Rather, they perceive “the law” to be a kind of sinister force which compels a defendant to receive an undeserved sentence, notwithstanding the legislature’s ameliorative intent, because our Councilmembers neglected to use the magic words contemplated by the savings statutes.
Judge Ferren has skillfully assembled an array of federal cases in support of their position. Although none of these decisions is controlling, some of them tilt the government’s way. The state court cases, on the other hand, have the best of the argument from a common sense perspective, and the defendants plainly prevail if we follow these *110non-binding but persuasive precedents. In the final analysis, however, it is what the Council intended that counts. On that issue, in my view, the majority’s thesis founders. Did the very legislators who set out to protect defendants from undeserved mandatory minimum sentences simultaneously mean to compel judges to impose such sentences on people like Katrina Lowman after the effective date of the Act? Unless we ascribe to the Council incongruous designs that work at cross-purposes with each other, the answer must be no.
IV.
COUNTER-POSTSCRIPT
I invite the unusually patient reader who has stayed with us this far to determine for himself or herself whether various contentions which Judge Ferren has attributed to me in his “postscript” correspond to the positions which I have actually taken in this dissenting opinion. I note only that it is the majority, and not yours truly, that has “decide[d] not to apply a law after it became effective”; that a Supreme Court decision involving a defendant who was sentenced before an ameliorative statute was enacted cannot (at least under any legal principles with which I am familiar) control cases in which a defendant is sentenced after the effective date of such a statute; and that if the legislative intent behind ameliorative statutes is obvious to the highest courts of New York and California (among many others), it ought to be apparent to my colleagues as well.
I agree with the majority that “[cjriminal conduct often brings tragedy.” In the run-of-the-mill case, this goes with the territory, and the legislature can be presumed to have intended sad consequences because they could not be avoided. In this case, however, my colleagues ascribe to the Council the intention to inflict tragedy, after the effective date of the Act, even where the sentencing judge is satisfied that the defendant does not deserve the punishment that generates the misfortune. The MMSAA, as construed by the majority, thus brings a great deal of demonstrably unnecessary tragedy to the affected families and to the community at large.
Statutes are not to be construed as ordaining gratuitous suffering if such a construction can reasonably be avoided.
General terms should be so limited in their application as not to lead to injustice, oppression, or an absurd consequence. It will always, therefore, be presumed that the legislature intended exceptions to its language, which would avoid results of this character.
United States v. Kirby, 74 U.S. (7 Wall) 482, 486-87, 19 L.Ed. 278 (1868) (emphasis added). Justice Chase’s language for the Court in Noonan v. Bradley, 76 U.S. (9 Wall.) 394, 19 L.Ed. 767 (1869), a case involving the interpretation of a contract, is equally applicable to statutes:
[W]hen an instrument is susceptible of two constructions — the one working injustice and the other consistent with the right of the case — that one should be favored which standeth with the right.
Id. at 407; accord, Lowman, supra, 632 A.2d at 97-98 (concurring and dissenting opinion).
I agree with the majority that “it is this court’s role to apply laws as the Council has written them, not as we would have ... written them ourselves.” To do otherwise is to usurp a core legislative prerogative. In construing the Council’s words, however, our lodestar must be actual legislative intent. Because in my view, the Council did not intend to compel judges to sentence Holiday, Burgess and Palmer to a mandatory minimum term of four years or, a fcniiori, Ms. Park to a mandatory minimum term of five years, I dissent from those portions of the majority’s decision that hold the contrary.

. The full name of the statute is "District of Columbia Nonviolent Offenses Mandatory-Minimum Sentences Amendment Act of 1994." The reader will perhaps forgive the abbreviated acronym.

. Some of the language in the Judiciary Committee’s Report was taken verbatim from Ms. De-Frank's testimony.

. Ms. DeFrank also quoted a statement by Justice Kennedy to a Congressional subcommittee in which he agreed “with most judges in the federal system in the view that mandatory mínimums are imprudent, unwise, and often an unjust mechanism for sentencing.”

. A representative of the Women in Prison Project of the National Women's Law Center testified, in part, as follows:
The imposition of mandatory minimums on female drug offenders has a devastating, long-lasting impact on the stability of families in the District of Columbia, and places a tremendous strain on our already overburdened child welfare system.... Currently, countless children are left permanently scarred when they are separated from their mothers for long periods of time, and are shuffled about an overburdened and often insensitive child welfare system. Repealing mandatory minimum laws for drug offenses will minimize these scars, and help keep families together.

. A repeated theme of the testimony of the proponents of the MMSAA was that mandatory minimum sentences were disproportionately applied to members of racial and other minorities. The Director of the Public Defender Service (PDS) revealed, for example, that in 1993, the overwhelming majority of drug arrests were made in predominantly black residential areas, and that there was only one arrest for crack cocaine in predominantly white Ward 3 out of a total of 1894.

. The witness told the Council that
[ujnder the current law, prisoners who are dying of AIDS or other conditions while serving a mandatory minimum sentence for a nonviolent offense, must die in prison. Dozens of prisoners who pose no threat to the community have been denied release under the medical parole program solely because they are serving a mandatory minimum sentence. This is both enormously costly to the District and cruel to these prisoners and their families.

. As the majority points out, there is a single reference in the Judiciary Committee Report to "reducing mandatory-minimums for non-violent offenders charged after the effective date of the Act." I agree with my colleagues that this allusion, which refers to a version of the bill rejected by the Council, is inconclusive with respect to the issue before us.

. Moreover, in case of doubt as to the meaning of the MMSAA, we should apply the rule of lenity, which "applies not only to interpretations of the *96substantive ambit of criminal prohibitions, but also to the penalties they impose." Bifulco v. United States, 447 U.S. 381, 387, 100 S.Ct. 2247, 2252, 65 L.Ed.2d 205 (1980) (citations omitted). "This policy [of lenity] embodies the instinctive distaste against men [and women] languishing in prison unless the lawmaker has clearly said they should." Bass, supra, 404 U.S. at 348, 92 S.Ct. at 523 (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting H. Friendly, Mr. Justice Frankfurter and the Reading of Statutes, in Benchmarks 196, 209 (1967)); Luck, supra, 617 A.2d at 515. Mandatory minimum statutes restrict a judge’s traditional sentencing discretion, and the application of the rule of lenity is especially appropriate in construing such enactments. See Dupree v. United States, 583 A.2d 1000, 1004 n. 5 (D.C.1990); id. at 1004-05 (concurring opinion).

. Other authorities to the same general effect are cited in Part IIB of the majority opinion.

. Fashions change, in criminal justice as in millinery, and retribution is more in vogue today than it was forty years ago. Obviously, however, *97the MMSAA was not intended to impose retribution upon those defendants who, in the sentencing judge’s view, did not deserve the previously mandatory punishment. On the contrary, the statute was enacted to return to sentencing judges discretion which had been withheld from them under the mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

. The court in Oliver carefully distinguished cases in which final judgment had been imposed prior to the effective date of the ameliorative statute:
It may be well to note that the construction that we are here according to the amendment cannot be applied in favor of an offender tried and sentenced to imprisonment before its enactment. ... This inevitably follows from the settled rule that, once final judgment has been pronounced, a change in the law does not arrest or interfere with execution of the sen-tence_ Whenever the Legislature alters existing law, a certain measure of inequality is bound to ensue. Where the change is ameliorative and reflects a judgment that the earlier law was unduly harsh or unjust, a court should not withhold the benefits of the new statute to one tried after its passage, merely because it is powerless to extend them to those already convicted.
151 N.Y.S.2d at 375-76, 134 N.E.2d at 203 (emphasis added).
The emphasized language, in my view, refutes the purported rationale propounded by the majority for imposing mandatory minimum sentences on these defendants. See maj. op. at 79. Surely my colleagues do not seriously ascribe to the Council the view that a defendant should receive a lengthy prison sentence which he does not deserve simply because another defendant has already received such a sentence. The fact that our elected representatives were unable to correct what they viewed as an injustice to persons previously sentenced could hardly have motivated them to insist that a like injustice be inflicted on additional defendants. I therefore believe that Judge Fuld had it exactly right.

. The decisive importance of the words “release and extinguish” is most apparent in the phrasing of D.C.Code § 49-304(a), which provides that the repealed statute remains in effect for the enforcement of any penalty “unless the repealing act expressly provides for the release or extinguishment of any penalty...." If the repealing statute has effected no release or extinguishment, then no express provision releasing or extinguishing any penalty is required, and the savings statute has no application.

. My colleagues characterize as "self-refuting,” maj. op. at 74 n. 32, the proposition that where the legislature provides alternative sentencing options to what was previously a mandatory sentence, but where the court may still impose the same period of incarceration as before, there has been no extinguishment or release of the penalty. I suggest that the impartial reader who knows the meaning of the word "extinguish” will have considerable trouble following the majority's drift, particularly since the statute must be narrowly construed — a principle of construction the applicability of which my colleagues cannot and do not contest. Moreover, contrary to my colleagues' patent non-sequitur, the "fact that defendants and prosecutors alike perceived a considerable difference between mandatory and discretionary penalties," id. — a difference no rational person can deny — does not prove that the MMSAA extinguished or released any penalties. On the contrary, the statute merely provided new alternative options to the sentencing judge, in addition to the non-released and non-extinct sentences of four to twelve years (or more) that the judge could still impose.
The majority's reliance on Ex Post Facto Clause jurisprudence, e.g., Lindsey v. Washington, 301 U.S. 397, 57 S.Ct. 797, 81 L.Ed. 1182 (1937) is founded on the same non-sequitur. A sentence of four years without parole is obviously harsher than a sentence of four years from which the defendant can be paroled. Under the MMSAA, however, a defendant can be sentenced to serve more than four years before being paroled, and there has thus been no extinguishment or release.

. The government contended at oral argument that the MMSAA did "extinguish” mandatory minimum sentences because defendants sentenced after its effective date would be entitled to credit for good time, while those serving mandatory minimum terms would not. See D.C.Code § 24-434 (1996). Because the judge in each of these cases could sentence the defendant to a term of imprisonment of from ten to thirty years, however, he or she could easily adjust for good time credits by simply raising the minimum sentence accordingly. The judge’s power to impose the equivalent of the previous mandatory minimum sentence was not realistically affected at all, and, a fortiori, was not released or extinguished, by the enactment of the MMSAA.

. Properly understood, Marrero, supra, 417 U.S. at 659-63, 94 S.Ct. at 2536-38, is not to the contrary. In that case, the defendant had already been sentenced to a mandatory minimum term when the statute authorizing parole was enacted. Justice Brennan’s entire analysis arose in the context of a mandatory minimum sentence which Marrero was serving, and from which he sought to be released on the basis of a retroactive application of a new law authorizing parole. The majority's theory that this critical difference from the facts in the present appeals was irrelevant to the Court’s analysis is entirely speculative. See also note 16, infra.
Moreover, the opinion in Marrero does not directly address the precise contention, central to this dissent, that a penalty is not released or extinguished if the judge can still impose it. This is likewise true of United States v. Jacobs, 919 F.2d 10, 12 (3d Cir.1990) and United States v. Cook, 890 F.2d 672, 675-76 (4th Cir.1989). "Questions that merely lurk in the record, neither brought to the attention of the court nor ruled upon, are not to be considered as having been so decided as to constitute precedents.” Webster v. Fall, 266 U.S. 507, 511, 45 S.Ct. 148, 149, 69 L.Ed. 411 (1925); Murphy v. McCloud, 650 A.2d 202, 205 (D.C.1994) (quoting Webster).

. The government relies on Johnson v. United States, 576 A.2d 739 (D.C.1990) (per curiam). In that case, the defendant was sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment in 1985. In 1987, the Council enacted legislation authorizing the judge to waive mandatory minimum sentences trader the so-called "addict exception.” Johnson sought retroactive modification of his sentence pursuant to the addict exception. This court affirmed the denial of his request, noting that the amendment was enacted after Johnson's conviction had become final. Id. at 740. The court added by way of dictum that "the 1987 Amendment, if applied to appellant’s 1985 conviction, would ‘release or extinguish’ the penalty he incurred, viz, mandatory imprisonment.” Id.
Johnson is readily distinguishable. In Johnson, the defendant had been sentenced before the effective date of the ameliorative statute. In the cases now before us, the sentences were imposed after the MMSAA came into effect. Compare Duvall v. United States, 676 A.2d 448, 451-52 (D.C.1996) with Alpizar v. United States, 595 A.2d 991 (D.C.1991). The court’s brief comments in Johnson regarding the language of 1 U.S.C. § 109 were not necessary for the disposition of the case, and no attempt was made to analyze the terms "release” or "extinguish.” The dictum in Johnson is not binding on us, see, e.g., Albertie v. Louis & Alexander Corp., 646 A.2d 1001, 1005 (D.C.1994), and I find it to be too cryptic to be persuasive.
The government’s reliance on Marrero, supra, is also misplaced. See note 15, supra. In Marre-ro, as in Johnson, the defendant had been sentenced prior to the enactment of the ameliorative statute. 417 U.S. at 655, 94 S.Ct. at 2534. In contending that he was belatedly entitled to be considered for parole on a mandatory minimum sentence, the defendant was effectively asking the Court to treat the new statute as a legislative pardon. Nothing like that is presented here.
Marrero appears on its own facts, to have been an overwhelming case for the government. The court in Oliver would plainly have decided it as did the Supreme Court. See note 11, supra (quoting Oliver, 151 N.Y.S.2d at 375-76, 134 N.E.2d at 203); People v. Walker, 81 N.Y.2d 661, 603 N.Y.S.2d 280, 283-84, 623 N.E.2d 1, 4-5 (1993) (where defendant sought reduction of 1984 sentence on basis of 1986 amendment, Oliver’s amelioration doctrine does not apply). Even so, three justices dissented in Marrero.
The present case is a much closer one. The Oliver approach plainly favors these defendants; indeed, the majority finds it necessary to reject Oliver and similar decisions in order to rule for the government. I do not believe that the Marre-ro Court would have been ready to reject that impressive line of well-reasoned cases. The Court’s statement in Marrero that "the 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,” id. at 661, 94 S.Ct. at 2537, must be understood in the context of the facts before the Court, and not the entirely different situation presented by these appeals. See Armour & Co. v. *102Wantock, 323 U.S. 126, 132-33, 65 S.Ct. 165, 168, 89 L.Ed. 118 (1944) (the "words of our opinions are to be read in light of the facts of the order under discussion.... General expressions transposed to other facts are often misleading.”)

. I do not believe that there is any binding precedent in this jurisdiction, either way, on the issue under discussion. Jones v. United States, 117 U.S.App.D.C. 169, 327 F.2d 867 (1963), has no bearing on this case. There Congress repealed the mandatory death penalty two years after the defendant was sentenced to death, and the court held that the amendment did not apply to the defendant.
The government relies on Hurwitz, supra, but that case differs from ours in that, as we have seen, the amendment did "extinguish” prior maximum penalties. Moreover, the opinion is cryptic and conclusory. The court did not state whether there was any evidence that the statute was intended to apply to pending cases, nor did it address the question whether the savings statute would trump such evidence if it existed. Finally, my examination of the briefs in Hurwitz, written two-thirds of a century ago, reveals that the defendant did not present to the court the kind of issue decided in Oliver, Estrada, Schultz and similar cases. "The judicial mind [was not] applied to and [did not] pass upon the precise question” with which we are now presented, Murphy, supra, 650 A.2d at 205, a fact which further dilutes the precedential force of Hurwitz.
The defendants rely on Melson v. United States, 505 A.2d 455 (D.C.1986) (per curiam). In that case, this court held that the defendant, who had committed his offense prior to the repeal of the Federal Youth Corrections Act (FYCA), could not lawfully be sentenced pursuant to the FYCA after the effective date of the repeal. See maj. op. at 71 n. 26. The repealing legislation contained no language saving pending prosecutions. The general savings statute was brought to the attention of the court, but it was not cited in the court’s opinion. Although Melson could plausibly be read as implicitly holding that the general savings statute will not permit the sentencing of a defendant under a repealed sentencing scheme, I am reluctant to consider the decision as authority for a proposition which the court never explicitly addressed. See, e.g., District of Columbia v. Sierra Club, 670 A.2d 354, 360 (D.C.1996).
There is likewise no binding federal precedent. I have previously explained that in Marrero, the only Supreme Court decision raising issues even arguably comparable to those here, the defendant’s sentencing preceded the repeal. See note 16, supra. In United States v. Ross, 464 F.2d 376 (2d Cir.1972), cert. denied, 410 U.S. 990, 93 S.Ct. 1507, 36 L.Ed.2d 188 (1973), on which the government relies heavily, the repealing legislation provided that "prosecution for any violation of the law occurring prior to [the effective date of the new statute] shall not be affected by the repeal [of the old statute] or abated by reason thereof.” Id. at 379. The discussion in Ross of the general savings statute was therefore pure dictum. Even if Ross were in point, which it is not, this court would not be required to follow it, for "only a decision of the Supreme Court of the United. States is binding on us.” Hornstein v. Barry, 560 A.2d 530, 536 n. 15 (D.C.1989) (en banc).

. In Melson, supra note 17, this court held that a defendant could not lawfully be sentenced pursuant to the FYCA, after the repeal of that statute, for conduct committed prior to the repeal. It did so without mentioning the general savings statute, thus corroborating Justice Schaefer’s thesis. If we are to indulge the fiction that our Councilmembers — lawyers and lay people alike— always have the savings statutes in mind, and that they also keep up with our cases and our interpretations of various statutes, then it follows that our legislators could readily infer from Mel-son that mandatory minimum penalties would *103not apply in the circumstances now before us, and that the insertion into the MMSAA of a statement expressly so providing would not be necessary.

. The court was referring to California's statutory presumption against retroactivity of legislative enactments.

. The Council, of course, enacted a similar statute in 1990.

. See D.C.Law 8-138, 37 DCR 2638, now codified at D.C.Code § 33-541(c)(l)(A-2)(ii) (1993).

. Council of the District of Columbia, Committee on the Judiciary, Report on Bill 8-495, the [ONA-DIAA] (March 7, 1990) (ONADIAA Report).

. Judge Ferren claims that the possibility of a mistake is "refuted by the references to the increased penalty in the legislative history.” He ignores the probability that the figures were automatically carried over from one document to the second.

. I note that a similar discrepancy exists in relation to second offenses by minor dealers. A minor dealer in crack or other narcotics receives a mandatory minimum of seven years. A minor dealer in powdered cocaine receives eight years. A major dealer in powdered cocaine, however, is subject to a ten-year minimum for a second offense.

. Unlike the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment contains no Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court has held, however, that the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment embraces equal protection principles. Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 500, 74 S.Ct. 693, 695, 98 L.Ed. 884 (1954). Ms. Park has formulated her constitutional assault on her sentence in equal protection terms. Whether we view the case doctrinally as falling within the equal protection rubric or as raising an issue of substantive due process, the dispositive question is the same: was there a rational basis for the challenged legislative action?

. According to my colleagues, “[i]t is not surprising, nor does it violate the Constitution, for legislative bodies to attempt diametrically opposed, but rationally based, solutions to a particular social problem.” Maj. op. at 89. In theory, that is absolutely correct, but this truism has nothing to do with the present case. Nobody seriously believes that the Councilmembers would adopt a solution so “diametrically opposed” to the norm without a single legislator saying anything about the subject. If my colleagues in the majority believed with very much conviction that the Council deliberately made this "diametrically opposed” choice here, then I do not think they would characterize the government’s justification as "strained.”

. In its brief, the government argues as follows:
However, if the Court accepts appellant's constitutional claim, the remedy would not be to ignore the mandatory-minimum provisions of § 541(c), as appellant suggests.... The " ‘cardinal principle of statutory construction is to save and not to destroy.’ ” Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672, 684, [91 S.Ct. 2091, 2098, 29 L.Ed.2d 790] (1971) (plurality opinion) (quoting NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel, 301 U.S. 1, 30 [57 S.Ct. 615, 621, 81 L.Ed. 893] (1937)); accord McClough v. United States, 520 A.2d 285, 289 (D.C.1987). Thus, " ’[a] court should refrain from invalidating more of the statute than is necessary.’ ” Alaska Airlines, Inc. v. Brock, 480 U.S. 678, 684 [107 S.Ct. 1476, 1479, 94 L.Ed.2d 661] (1987) (quoting Regan v. Time, Inc., 468 U.S. 641, 652 [104 S.Ct. 3262, 3269, 82 L.Ed.2d 487] (1984) (plurality opinion)). When a particular piece of a statute is found unconstitutional, it is the court's duty to maintain those portions of the statute that are valid. Brock, supra, 480 U.S. a[t] 684 [107 S.Ct. at 1479]; Regan, supra, 468 U.S. at 652 [104 S.Ct. at 3269]. " ‘Unless it is evident that the legislature would not have enacted those provisions which are within its power, independently of that which is not, the invalid part may be dropped if what is left is *109fully operative as a law.’ ” Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 108 [96 S.Ct. 612, 677, 46 L.Ed.2d 659] (1976) (per curiam) (quoting Champlin Refining Co. v. Corporation Comm’n of Oklahoma, 286 U.S. 210, 234 [52 S.Ct. 559, 565, 76 L.Ed. 1062] (1932)); accord, Brock, supra, 480 U.S. at 684 [107 S.Ct. at 1479]; Gary v. United States, 499 A.2d 815, 821 (D.C.1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1086 [106 S.Ct. 1470, 89 L.Ed.2d 725] (1986).
Here, the ... Council imposed a mandatory-minimum sentence for first-time dealers in "narcotic” drugs — defined to include cocaine. Even if the higher mandatory sentence for cocaine-powder offenses is invalidated, there is no basis to reject the entire mandatory-minimum scheme as it relates to cocaine. Thus, appellant’s sentence would be cut from five years to four years, but she should not escape a mandatory-minimum sentence altogether. Cf. United States v. Pearson, 202 A.2d 392, 393 (D.C.1964) (suggesting that judges could avoid potential unreasonable result simply by imposing sentence for attempted petit larceny that is no higher than maximum penalty for completed offense of petit larceny).

. As events developed, Ms. Lowman was able to escape the mandatory minimum by availing herself of the "addict exception.” She received a reduced prison sentence.