US Sentencing Commission sets out broad, general request concerning proposed priorities for 2024 to 2025 amendment cycle

Last Friday, the US Sentencing Commission released this interesting document, its "Federal Register Notice of Proposed 2024-2025 Priorities."  I had been waiting to get an "official" email from the sentencing commission describing the document before blogging about it, and late yesterday that email came with this heading: "A Request from Judge Carlton W. Reeves, Chair, U.S. Sentencing Commission."  Here is the text of the email, which serves to summarize the gist of the Federal Register Notice:

I’m writing to ask you for a small favor. Most summers, the Sentencing Commission announces the work we plan to prioritize over the coming year.  This summer, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Commission’s creation (and twenty years post Booker), we’re doing something different. We’re asking people – including you – to tell us what to do this year and in the years to come.

My request is this: please take five minutes of your time to tell the Commission how we can create a fairer, more just sentencing system.  Tell us how to revise the Guidelines.  Tell us what issues to study or what data to collect.  Tell us what workshops to conduct, what hearings to hold, what advisory groups to convene, or what ways the Commission can better serve you.  Or even just tell us what big picture issues you’d like us to tackle – or what technical problems you’d like us to look into.

Trust me, I know how busy daily lives are, so we’ve made it easy to give us your thoughts.

You can type a paragraph (or even a sentence or two!) into our Public Comment Submission Portal at: https://comment.ussc.gov.  If you want to write a letter, you can submit it through the Portal, too, or via snail mail to United States Sentencing Commission, One Columbus Circle, N.E., Suite 2-500, Washington, D.C. 20002-8002, Attention: Public Affairs – Priorities Comment.

It doesn’t matter how you speak to us. And it doesn’t matter how short or long your comment is.  What matters is that you speak to us.  Please encourage your colleagues to do the same.

One comment can make the difference. Remember: when you speak to the Commission … you will be heard.

Sincerely,

Carlton W. Reeves

I am very pleased that the Commission, after two years of intricate work on a range of pressing issues, is now asking for help while seemingly being prepared to take a big picture look at the full sentencing system and the Commission's own work therein. Notably, the formal Federal Registar Notice frames this big picture inquiry in terms of key statutory provision of the Sentencing Reform Act. Here is how it substantively starts:

In light of the 40th anniversary of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, Pub. L. 98–473, 98 Stat. 1987 (1984), the Commission intends to focus on furthering the Commission’s statutory purposes and missions as set forth in the Sentencing Reform Act, including:

(1) Establishing “sentencing policies and practices for the Federal criminal justice system that . . . assure the meeting of the purposes of sentencing”—namely, rehabilitation, deterrence, just punishment, and incapacitation. 28 U.S.C. 991(b)(1)(A).

(2) Establishing “sentencing policies and practices for the Federal criminal justice system that . . . provide certainty and fairness in meeting the purposes of sentencing, avoiding unwarranted sentencing disparities.” 28 U.S.C. 991(b)(1)(B).

(3) Establishing “sentencing policies and practices for the Federal criminal justice system that . . . reflect, to the extent practicable, advancement of knowledge of human behavior as it relates to the criminal justice process.” 28 U.S.C. 991(b)(1)(C).

(4) “[M]easuring the degree to which the sentencing, penal, and correctional practices are effective in meeting the purposes of sentencing.” 28 U.S.C. 991(b)(2).

There is a lot more to the USSC's official notice (in pdf form here), but the message from the Commission seems pretty clear: it is prepared to, and is perhaps even eager to, start (re)considering any and all aspected of the federal sentencing system.  Kudos to the USSC for starting off its next cycle of work this way.