The latest, greatest district court opinion applying FSA to pipeline cases

A couple of veru helpful readers have alerted me to a notable new district court opinion concerning the application of the Fair Sentencing Act to pipeline cases.  Here is one report I received via e-mail concerning the opinion:

Although there are a litany of FSA retroactivity cases being decided on a weekly bases..., I thought the attached opinion was worthy of highlighting to you.  The case is US v. Watts, 09-cr-30030-MAP (D. Mass. April 5, 2011) [available for download below].

It's a 50 page Memorandum from Judge Ponsor that describes the history of crack sentencing and then explains in a thorough analysis why the FSA must be applied to defendants who are pending sentencing and why the General Savings Statute is no bar to that conclusion.  Consistent with your amicus letter [discussed here], it also distinguishes between individuals who have already been sentenced vs. defendants pending sentence.

There are a lot of choice passages, [including]:

• "A review of the background of [the General Savings Statute], and the authorities construing it, reveals that it is simply not the straitjacket some courts have supposed it to be." (slip op. at 33-34).
• "An examination of the muddied jurisprudential history of the General Saving Statute reveals the impertinence of the government’s position." (slip op. at 37).
• "It is only by covering his eyes and plugging his ears that any fairminded person could avoid the conclusion that Congress intended, by 'fair implication,' to treat the statutory amendments, whose effect was even more unjust than the effect of the Guidelines, the same way it directed the Guidelines to be treated, that is, to mandate that the amended statutes be applied to all defendants coming before federal courts for sentencing." (slip op. at 42).

Download JudgePonsorMemoonFSA-Watts

Some posts on this FSA issue:

• Second Circuit demands application of old 100-1 crack mandatories ... with laments
• Seventh Circuit rejects FSA's application to defendants sentenced after it changed crack statutes
• 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
• Federal sentencing litigation at its absolute finest
• New USDC opinion applying new FSA law to not-yet-sentenced defendants
• 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?
• Senators Leahy and Durbin write letter to Attorney General Holder urging application of FSA to pending cases
• WSJ notes dispute over application of FSA to pending cases
• A (partial) account of deep split over application of FSA's new statutory terms to pipeline cases
• Notable new letter to AG Eric Holder concerning application of the FSA

UPDATE:  Another helpful reader suggested that I spotlight this additional quote from the first few pages of the Watts opinion:

The broader question is whether federal trial courts will be required, for roughly the next five years, to perpetuate a congressionally recognized injustice.  It is disturbing enough when courts, whose primary task is to do justice, become themselves the instruments of injustice, as in the history of our nation it must be acknowledged they sometimes have. But this discomfort reaches its zenith when the injustice has been identified and formally remedied by Congress itself.  For a trial judge, the distastefulness of being forced to continue imposing a rejected penalty becomes unendurable in light of the fact that Congress acted partly because the injustice is racially skewed and, as everyone now agrees, will fall disproportionately upon Black defendants such as Mr. Watts.

The government’s position here is that this court, and all federal trial courts in this country, must robotically continue to impose penalties that all three branches of government -- executive, legislative, and judicial -- and all elements of our political system -- Republicans and Democrats from the most conservative to the most liberal -- have now formally condemned as racially tainted and have explicitly rejected as not only unjust but mistaken from the outset.  For the reasons set forth below, the affront to manifest and undisputed congressional intent advocated by the government here is not required by law.