Federal sentencing litigation at its absolute finest

The title of this post is a fitting description of what I experienced this morning in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas of the Southern District of New York. 

As regular readers know, I have been troubled by the Justice Department's view that any defendant who committed a crack offense before the enactment of the Fair Sentencing Act should get no benefit from the the FSA's statutory provisions. And, with the help of a terrific attorney litigating this issue for a client awaiting with a case pending before Judge Karas, I had the opportunity to submit a couple amicus letters (discussed here and here) setting out my thoughts about why the FSA's provisions should be applied to cases in the pipeline that have not yet been sentenced.

Today was argument day in the White Plains courthouse of the SDNY, and Judge Karas devoted three hours to hearing argument from numerous defense counsel and from me and from the Government.  At every stage of the proceeding today, I was wowed by the effectiveness, insightfulness and kindness of all the litigating and especially Judge Karas.  I feel confident asserting that the level of argument and legal discourse in this district court (as well as the copious briefing that came before the argument) rivaled what one expects before the Courts of Appeals or even the Supreme Court.

I always hope and expect that federal district courts will give as much time and attention to sentencing issues as do appellate courts, but busy dockets and busy litigants do not always make that possible.  In this case, my hopes and expectations were not only met, but exceeded.  And I could gush on at length about many facets of the experience, but at this point I have probably already given the parties involved a justified sense of how impressed I was by their efforts and how grateful I was to be able to participate in this (not so?) little facet of federal criminal justice administration.

Some recent related posts:

• Adding my two cents concerning application of the FSA to pending cases
• A few more thoughts on applying the FSA to not-yet-sentenced defendants
• New USDC opinion applying new FSA law to not-yet-sentenced defendants
• Seeking ground reports on the FSA's application to not-yet-sentenced cases
• Why is Obama's DOJ, after urging Congress to "completely eliminate" any crack/powder disparity, now seeking to keep the 100-1 ratio in place as long as possible?
• Does Abbott provide new and added support for applying the FSA to pending cases?
• Senators Leahy and Durbin write letter to Attorney General Holder urging application of FSA to pending cases