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Sentencing Commission Finally Tackles Meth Guidelines – Update for December 16, 2025

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SENTENCING COMMISSION PROPOSES LONG-AWAITED METH GUIDELINES AMENDMENT

There was a time when the US Sentencing Commission held a work meeting in January during which it would sort through ideas for the coming November’s amendments, adopting some options for public comment. After a few months of written comments and public sessions, the USSC would roll out the proposed amendments just in time for its May 1 deadline to get the package to Congress.

Under USSC Chairman Carlton W. Reeves, a US District Judge from the Southern District of Mississippi, the schedule seems to have been accelerated. That’s not a bad thing. But at the same time, the meetings these days seem much shorter and bereft of any meaningful discussion. I’ve seen speed dating encounters last longer.

Last Friday, in a 25-minute session, the Commission adopted for public comment a 194-page proposal to amend guidelines in nine areas. For prisoners, the most important of these to prisoners would be the options to change the methamphetamine guidelines. One proposal (Option 1) is to simply eliminate the Guidelines distinction among a meth mixture, meth (actual), and high-purity ice. All meth would be scored the same.

An alternative option (Option 2) would be to keep the distinctions in the current meth Guidelines but offer reductions for people who had minor roles, who qualified for the 18 USC § 3553(f) safety valve, or who were involved only because of family relationships or duress.

For theft and economic crimes, the Commission wants public comment on a proposal to raise the loss tables (which drive the offense level) by an average of 40%, both to simplify application and to adjust for inflation (which was done last 11 years and a lot of price hikes ago – up about 31% since 2016, according to one cost-of-living calculator).

In a separate proposal, the USSC seeks comment on a proposal to “simplify” the USSG § 2B1.1 loss table by reducing it from 16 levels to 7, with jumps of 4 points for each level. Additionally, the Commission suggests a new § 2B1.1 enhancement to reflect noneconomic harm to victims, such as physical, psychological harm, emotional, and reputational damage, or invasion of privacy.

More interesting is a USSC request for comment on redefinition of the “sophisticated means” enhancement. Currently, “sophisticated means” is widely applied by courts to virtually any economic offense more complex than stealing a Salvation Army kettle. The Commission seeks to return the “sophisticated means” enhancement to what was originally intended, “committing or concealing an offense with a greater level of complexity than typical for an offense of that nature” and provide further guidance for courts to use when determining whether conduct fits the definition.

Finally, the USSC has suggested a post-offense rehabilitation adjustment when a defendant shows pre-sentencing positive behavior or rehabilitation, such as voluntary efforts at rehabilitation or attempts to make things right with the victims.

No one already sentenced should get hopes up yet. None of the proposals has been suggested to be retroactive. That decision usually only comes after the proposed amendments are adopted in April. The Commission has a pending study on how to decide retroactivity, and a number of proposals for retroactivity of specific changes are bottled up awaiting the results of the retroactivity policy review.

Public comment closes February 10, 2026. Comments may be submitted through the USSC portal or in writing to U.S. Sentencing Commission, One Columbus Circle, NE, Suite 2-500, Washington, DC 20002-8002, Attn: Public Affairs – Proposed Amendments.

USSC Public Meeting (December 12, 2025)

USSC, Proposed Amendments to the Sentencing Guidelines (Preliminary) (December 12, 2025)

~ Thomas  L. Root

USSC To Propose 2026 Guidelines Amendments Next Week – Update for December 5, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

SENTENCING COMMISSION SETS DECEMBER MEETING ON 2026 AMENDMENTS

The United States Sentencing Commission announced last Monday that it would hold a public meeting on Friday, December 12, 2025, at which it is likely to vote to publish some proposed guideline amendments.

Policy priorities – which may or may not be reflected in proposed amendments – include revisiting the penalty structure in the USSG § 2D1.1 drug guidelines, including issues of methamphetamine purity. They also suggest the possible restructuring the § 2B1.1 theft/fraud guidelines “to ensure the guidelines appropriately reflect the culpability of the individual and the harm to the victim, including (A) reassessing the role of actual loss, intended loss, and gain; (B) considering whether the loss table in § 2B1.1 should be revised to simplify application or to adjust for inflation,” as well as role in the offense and victim impact.

US Sentencing Commission, Public Meeting set for December 12, 2025 (November 24, 2025)

US Sentencing Commission, Final Priorities for Amendment Cycle (90 FR 39263, August 14, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

Bureau of Prisons Slipping on ICE – Update for November 25, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

THAT GIANT SUCKING SOUND…

Remember H. Ross Perot? During his unsuccessful third-party bid for president in 1992, he warned that the “giant sucking sound” we all heard was the sound of jobs going to Mexico.

It turns out that Bureau of Prisons director William K. Marshall III is hearing one of his own, the sound of BOP correctional officers quitting for the gold-plated working conditions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Last week, Pro Publica reported that “ICE has been on a recruiting blitz, offering $50,000 starting bonuses and tuition reimbursement at an agency that has long offered better pay than the federal prison system. For many corrections officers, it’s been an easy sell.”

By the start of November, the BOP had lost at least 1,400 more staff this year than it had hired, according to ProPublica. “We’re broken and we’re being poached by ICE,” one union official told ProPublica. “It’s unbelievable. People are leaving in droves.”

The exodus comes amid shortages of critical supplies. Staffers told Pro Publica that some facilities had even stopped providing basic hygiene items for officers, such as paper towels, soap and toilet paper.

Fewer corrections officers result in more lockdowns, less programming, fewer health care services for inmates, greater risks to staff, and more grueling hours of mandatory overtime. Prison teachers and medical staff are being forced to step in as corrections officers on a regular basis.

In a video posted last Wednesday afternoon, Deputy Director Josh Smith said that the agency was “left in shambles by the previous administration” and would take years to repair. Staffing levels, he said, were “catastrophic,” which, along with crumbling infrastructure and corruption, had made the prisons less safe.

He also frankly appraised the agency’s approach to the First Step Act:

The First Step Act was sabotaged by the Biden DOJ and BOP.  They have mismanaged millions meant for FSA implementation – building a time credit calculator that has never worked right – and FSA programming required by the law never materialized. Instead, they hired an outside contractor that blocked every outside program submitted by some of the most impactful faith-based organizations. They only approved internal BOP classes, and, despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars, the BOP still only added 100 halfway house beds in six years… all while reentry services division lost over 90 critical positions.

They diverted hundreds of millions of First Step Act funding into non-FSA programming and unrelated projects that they just labeled ‘FSA.’ This mismanagement squandered taxpayer money and undermined public safety. Lockdowns and collective punishment have become knee-jerk reactions… BOP has been consistently voted the worst place to work in all the federal government… This is the hand that we’ve been dealt, a Bureau on the brink scarred by decades of failure…

The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4th, could offer some financial support for the agency’s staffing woes, as it will route another $5 billion to the BOP over four years — $3 billion of which is specifically earmarked to improve retention, hiring and training. Yet exactly what the effects of that cash infusion will look like remains to be seen: Pro Publica reported that the “Bureau declined to answer questions about when it will receive the money or how it will be spent.”

Pro Publica, “We’re Broken”: As Federal Prisons Run Low on Food and Toilet Paper, Corrections Officers Are Leaving in Droves for ICE (November 20, 2025)

BOP, Video Message from the Deputy Director: A Bureau on the Brink (November 19, 2025)

~ Thomas L. Root

Mythbusters – Update for May 23, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

NO, CAMPERS ARE NOT BEING SENT HOME (AND OTHER MYTHS)

twain250523Mark Twain once said, “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

Oh, the sweet irony! Because it appears that Mark Twain (whose name wasn’t really “Mark Twain,” another lie) did not really say that. In other words, it’s a lie that Twain (the name itself being another lie) said that “a lie can travel half way around the world…”

Fitting for today’s post, because it’s hard to say how a lie like that can take flight. That leads us to two whoppers spreading through the Federal Bureau of Prisons like flu in a housing unit.

home210218Myth 1 – All minimum-security federal inmates with fewer than five years left are being sent to home confinement.  I get at least a dozen emails a week on this one: Is it true that Trump signed an executive order sending campers home? Is it true that it will all happen in September? Is it true that all the camps will close?

The answers are no, no, and no.

Trump has signed about 200 executive orders since January 20th, but not a one relates to the Bureau of Prisons (except the order to re-open Alcatraz). Nothing has been scheduled for September. BOP Director William K. Marshall III will not be personally driving everyone home. The camps will not close. It’s all a myth.

Here are the facts: The BOP is only allowed to send people to home confinement in one of two cases. Either the prisoner is in the last six months (or 10%, whichever’s less) of his or her sentence, or the prisoner is eligible to use FSA credits. For the former, 18 USC § 3624(c)(2) lets the prisoner go to home confinement. For the latter, 18 USC § 3624(g)(2)(A) permits spending those FSA credits on home confinement.

Congress has dictated when and how home confinement can be designated. Other Congressional home confinement programs (CARES Act and Elderly Offender Home Detention) expired two years ago. The President cannot order the BOP to send people to home confinement where Congress has passed laws expressly limiting it.

methuser161128Myth 2 – Send me a copy of the new meth law: I get nearly as many emails from people asking me to send them a copy of the “new meth law.” Do I look like a lending library? No matter, the response is straightforward. There is no new meth law.

In January, the Sentencing Commission said it was considering a change in the methamphetamine guidelines to do away with the purity enhancement, an increase in punishment where the meth was especially pure (or was “ice”). The change made great sense: these days, virtually all meth met the higher purity threshold, and so the old supposition – that very pure meth suggested the defendant was a high-level dealer – no longer had any legs.

In April, the USSC adopted proposed amendments that will take effect in November. The meth purity proposal was not among them. To this day, no one knows what happened to the idea.

yogi250523A few points: First, a Guideline is not a law. Judges must follow laws but not guidelines. Laws can be passed that trample guidelines, but guidelines cannot negate laws. Second, the drug trafficking sentence statute (21 USC § 841(b)) contains enhanced penalties for pure meth, and any guidelines change would not change the law and therefore have limited effect. Third, no one in the Republican majority Congress has any interest in easing the drug laws right now, even if fentanyl is the drug bad-boy-of-choice right now.

Recap: Home confinement for campers is a fantasy. A new meth law is a myth. And Mark Twain was not Mark Twain, and he probably never said most of the things he said.

– Thomas L. Root

Sentencing Commission Proposes Drug Table, Meth, Supervised Release Changes – Update for January 27, 2025

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

‘ICE’ MAY BE MELTING

In December, the United States Sentencing Commission announced proposed Sentencing Guidelines amendments for public comment on the sweeping if rather tedious topics of guideline simplification, criminal history, firearm offenses, circuit conflicts and retroactivity. 

drugdealer250127At the time, Sentencing Commission Chairman, Judge Carlton W. Reeves (Southern District of Mississippi) hinted that the USSC could be announcing some additional proposed amendments this month.

Last Friday, the Commission provided an upbeat end to a tough week for federal criminal justice, proposing defendant-friendly amendments to Guidelines on supervised release, the drug quantity tables, and enhanced offense levels for “ice” and pure methamphetamine.

The draft amendments, released for public comment, also propose cracking down on distribution of drugs laced with fentanyl as well as an increased enhancement for packing a machine gun during a drug crime.

The biggest surprise is a proposed change to adopt one of three options, any of which would reduce the top base offense level for drug quantity in the Guidelines. A Guidelines sentence for a drug offender is driven by the weight of the drugs attributed to him or her.  If Tom the Trafficker, with no prior convictions, was involved in a cocaine conspiracy that sold 1,000 lbs of cocaine (10 lbs. a week) over two years – even if he only sold an 8-ball a day five days a week for two years (about 4 lbs) – his Guidelines base offense level would be 38 with a sentencing range starting at 20 years in prison.

The three options the Sentencing Commission is considering would drop the levels in the drug quantity table to Level 30, 32 or 34 instead of the current 38.  At Level 30, our hypothetical Tom would be looking at an advisory sentencing range of 8 years instead of 20.

The Commission said it “has received comment over the years indicating that [Guideline] 2D1.1 overly relies on drug type and quantity as a measure of offense culpability and results in sentences greater than necessary to accomplish the purposes of sentencing.”

meth240618The second proposed amendment would essentially wipe out the drug quantity table’s 10-to-1 focus on meth purity and eliminate any enhanced penalty for crystal meth, known as “ice.” Commission data show that in the last 22 years, the offenses involving meth mixtures has remained steady while the number of offenses involving “meth (actual)” and “ice” have risen substantially. A recent Commission report found that today’s meth is “highly and uniformly pure, with an average purity of 93.2% and a median purity of 98.0%.”

In other words, if all meth is pure, applying the higher base offense level for pure meth becomes the norm rather than the exception. This is a drug-crime equivalent of the Lake Wobegon effect, humorist Garrison Keilor’s representation that in Lake Wobegon, all the children are above average.

The meth purity change could decrease Guideline base offense levels by up to 4.

A note: Judge Reeves, wearing his district court hat instead of USSC hat, wrote a thoughtful opinion two years ago in which he refused to apply the purity enhancement on the same grounds that the Commission cites now as a rationale for changing the Guidelines.

supervisedleash181107The other significant change is to supervised release, which would dramatically reduce the cases in which it is added to the end of a sentence. Among its many changes – focused on making supervised release more about rehabilitation and less about punishment – the proposed amendment would also adopt inmate-friendly standards for early termination of supervised release, making getting off supervised release after a year much easier to do.

The Sentencing Commission proposal says nothing about whether the drug quantity table reduction or meth changes – if they are adopted – would be retroactive. Retroactivity would be decided in a separate proceeding, and the USSC is in the middle of a painful re-evaluation of when and whether retroactivity should be allowed.

For now, the proposed amendments will be out for public comment until March 3, 2025, with reply comments due by March 18, 2025. The Commission will decide what it will adopt as final amendments by May 1, and those will become effective (absent Congressional veto) on November 1, 2025.

US Sentencing Commission, Proposed Amendments to the Sentencing Guidelines (Preliminary) (January 24, 2025)

– Thomas L. Root

No Christmas Treats for Prisoners from Sentencing Commission – Update for December 20, 2024

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

SENTENCING COMMISSION ROLLS OUT MINIMALIST 2025 AMENDMENT PROPOSAL

The United States Sentencing Commission yesterday adopted a slate of proposed amendments to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for the amendment cycle that will end on or before May 1, 2025, with the adoption of amendments to become effective next November.

Anyone who thought the Commission might roll out a proposal to no longer enhance methamphetamine sentences because of purity – something that US District Judge Carlton Reeves (who is currently chairman of the USSC) ruled from the bench two years ago makes no sense – was disappointed (but see below).

lumpofcoal221215Likewise, any federal prisoners hoping for a resolution to last August’s surprise decision to table retroactivity for four amendments that became effective last fall just found coal in their stockings. The Commission had proposed retroactivity for changes in Guidelines covering acquitted conduct, gun enhancements, Guidelines calculation where a defendant is convicted of an 18 USC § 922(g) felon-in-possession count, a 21 USC § 841 drug trafficking count and a separate 18 USC § 924 gun conviction; and a change in the drug Guidelines to tie mandatory and high base offense levels to statutory maximum sentences instead of more complex factors that inflate sentencing ranges.

Generally, changes in the Guidelines do not apply to people who have already been sentenced, but Guideline 1B1.10 addresses the rare occasions where a Guideline change is retroactive, providing prisoners already sentenced with a chance for a time reduction.

I wrote at the time that the Commission was perhaps responding to criticism heaped on it for adopting amended Guideline 1B1.13(b)(6), which permits judges to grant compassionate release where a prisoner’s sentence could not be imposed today because of changes in the law that occurred after the sentence was imposed. After the Commission adopted the amended 1B1.13 in April 2023, Sens John Kennedy (R-LA), Ted Cruz (R-TX), John Cornyn (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced the Consensus in Sentencing Act (S.4135) to require the Commission to achieve “bipartisan agreement to make major policy changes” by ”requiring that amendments to the Guidelines receive five votes from the Commission’s seven voting members.”

whine160814At the time, Kennedy complained that “[i]n recent years, the Commission has lost its way and begun forcing through amendments on party-line votes.” The Commission has seven voting members. No more than four members can belong to the same political party.

S.4135 never went anywhere, and it will die with the end of the 118th Congress in 10 days or so. Nevertheless, last June, retired US District Judge John Gleeson, a member of the Commission, met with Kennedy and – according to the Senator – “acknowledged the concerns raised about the Commission’s recent practices and confirmed that the Commission will return to making changes on a bipartisan basis.”

“I look forward to seeing the fruits of this commitment,” Kennedy said at the time.

The Commission is now seeking to harvest those fruits by issuing a request that the public comment on whether “it should provide further guidance on how the existing criteria for determining whether an amendment should apply retroactively are applied” and “[i]f so, what should that guidance be? Should it revise or expand the criteria? Are there additional criteria that the Commission should consider beyond those listed in the existing Background Commentary to § 1B1.10?”

The answer to whether there should be additional criteria is self-evident, especially because the same players (except for Rubio, leaving Congress for a position in President-elect Trump’s Cabinet) will be back in the Senate.

usscretro230406What the Commission decides will only partially address the Senators’ principal beef against any USSC proposal that passes on a 4-3 vote (at least until the Republicans again hold a majority on the Commission).

Third Circuit Judge L. Felipe Restrepo’s USSC term expires next October, the earliest chance Trump will have to tip the balance of the Commission to conservative. Given that Trump’s previous nominees to the Commission (never approved by the Senate) included US District Judges Danny Reeves and Henry “Hang ‘em High” Hudson, the likelihood that 4-3 Commission decisions will start looking good to Kennedy, Cruz and the others is fairly high.

Other USSC proposals for the amendment cycle include

• creating an alternative to the “categorical approach” used in the career offender guideline to determine whether a conviction qualifies a defendant for enhanced penalties;

• addressing the guidelines’ treatment of devices designed to convert firearms into fully automatic weapons (Glock switches and drop-in auto sears);

• adding a provision to the use of a stolen gun enhancement that requires that the defendant knew the gun was stolen; and

• resolving a circuit split on whether a traffic ticket in an “intervening arrest” that can serve to bump up criminal history.

Public comments are due by February 3, 2025, with replies due by February 18, 2025.

alicecuriouser230317Curiously, Judge Reeves said, “Over the next month, the Commission will consider whether to publish additional proposals that reflect the public comment, stakeholder input, and feedback from judges that we have received over the last year – including at the roundtables we have held in recent months on drug sentencing and supervised release.”

Whether this is a teaser that changes in the Commission’s approach to meth will be on the table is unclear.

Sentencing Commission meeting video (December 19, 2024)

Sentencing Commission Public Hearing (Video) (August 8, 2024)

Sentencing Commission, Final Priorities for Amendment Cycle (August 8, 2024)

S.4135, Consensus in Sentencing Act

Sen John Kennedy, Kennedy confirms that Sentencing Commission will return to bipartisan agreement for changes to Sentencing Guidelines (June 3, 2024)

USSC, Issue For Comment: Criteria for Selecting Guideline Amendments Covered by §1B1.10 (December 19, 2024)

USSC News Release, U.S. Sentencing Commission Seeks Comment on Proposals to Promote Public Safety And Simplify Federal Sentencing (December 19, 2024)

USSC, Summary of Proposed 2025 Amendments (December 19, 2024)

– Thomas L. Root

Nothing to See Here Anymore,’ BOP Tells Court About FCI Dublin – Update for June 25, 2024

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

But first, a mea culpa…

THOSE PESKY DETAILS

embarrassedLast week, I reported on a U.S. Sentencing Commission methamphetamine study that debunked the idea that there was anything special about meth with purity over 90%, despite the fact that 80% plus pure meth comes with much higher Guideline sentencing ranges.

I reported that the study found that meth tested by the government in fiscal year (FY) 2022 averaged over 90% pure with a median purity of 98%, “measurements dramatically higher than just two years before, when meth purity ranged from 10 to 80%.”

An alert reader questioned my data. It turns out he was correct.

According to the DEA, meth purity ranged from 10% to 80% in the year 2000, NOT 2020. My embarrassment at my error tests out at 100% purity, and I thank my reader for pointing out the mistake.

USSC, Methamphetamine Trafficking Offenses In The Federal Criminal Justice System (June 13, 2024)

‘WE BURIED THE DUBLIN PROBLEM, SO LET’S STOP TALKING ABOUT IT,’ BOP TELLS COURT

The Federal Bureau of Prisons has asked the U.S. District Court in Oakland to dismiss a class action lawsuit demanding systemic changes at FCI Dublin as moot, on the grounds that no one is imprisoned there anymore.

“The injunctive claims addressing conditions of confinement at FCI Dublin—a facility where no inmates are confined—must be dismissed as moot,” the motion filed last Tuesday argues. The plaintiff’s money damages claims, consideration of which have been stayed until August, would remain on file.

The suit was filed last August by female inmates, alleging rampant sexual assault and retaliation by Dublin staff. BOP abruptly shut down the facility in April shortly after Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers appointed a special master to oversee changes at the prison.

paniccrowd240625

The BOP’s motion admits that Dublin was in “dire need of immediate change.” The agency said, “Following its own deliberative process, BOP leadership determined that it needed to close FCI Dublin and transfer all female adults in custody (AICs) to other federal facilities. The transfer process was conducted subject to various court orders and in coordination with the Court’s special master. That process is now complete, and the AICs previously confined at Dublin are now at new facilities. If Dublin is eventually reopened, it will not be used to house female AICs again.”

The Court has described the closure of Dublin as “hasty and chaotic” but the BOP claims it “was carefully planned” and that the Court was privately advised a month before the April 15 mass movement.

A group of Congressional representatives is investigating allegations that the transfers were conducted inhumanely.

Motion to Dismiss, California Coalition for Women Prisoners v, BOP, ECF 326, Case No 4:23-cv-4155 (ND Cal, June 18, 2024)

KQED-TV, Biden Administration Seeks to Dismiss Lawsuit Over Bay Area Women’s Prison Abuses (June 18, 2024)

– Thomas L. Root

Raising the Bar on Methamphetamine Purity – Update for June 18, 2024

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

SENTENCING COMMISSION METH STUDY ACKNOWLEDGES REALITY

reeves230706Ever since U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves (Southern District of Mississippi)—who happens to have a side gig as chairman of the U.S. Sentencing Commission—ruled that these days everybody’s methamphetamine was so pure that the “methamphetamine actual” and “ice” purity enhancement in § 2D1.1 of the Guidelines made no sense, people have been asking me when the USSC is going to catch up with reality and throw out the higher sentencing ranges for 90% pure and higher meth.

I thought that we might have seen it in this year’s proposed amendments, but it didn’t happen. However, a Sentencing Commission study released last week suggests that the Commission may be looking for a change in next year’s amendment cycle.

It’s important, too. Over the past 20 years, meth trafficking offenses have risen by 168%, now accounting for half of all federal drug trafficking cases.

The study found that meth tested in fiscal year (FY) 2022 averaged over 90% pure with a median purity of 98%. Furthermore, the meth was uniformly tested at high purity whether it was classified for sentencing as a meth mixture (91% average purity), meth actual (93%) or ice (98%). These purity averages are dramatically higher than just two years before, back when methamphetamine purity ranged from 10 to 80%.

meth240618Under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(viii) and (B)(viii), it takes ten times as much weight of a meth mixture as it does actual meth or ice to trigger mandatory minimum penalties. So let’s say you’re a criminal newbie caught with a pound of meth of average purity. That would be 458 grams. If you are sentenced for 458 grams of “a mixture containing methamphetamine,” your advisory sentencing range would be 78-97 months. But if the government pushes for sentencing your pound as “methamphetamine actual,” you would have a mandatory minimum sentence of 120 months with a sentencing range topping out at 135 months.

As the late Johnny Cochrane is reputed to have said (at least by South Park) in his fictional but brilliant Chewbacca defense, “That does not make sense.”

chewbacca240618The Commission can change its Guidelines (and likely will in the next year or two), but altering 21 U.S.C. § 841(b) would require Congressional action.

Meth trafficking sentences averaged 91 months in FY 2022, the longest average among major federal drug trafficking offenses, more than fentanyl (65 months) and heroin (66 months). Meth trafficking offenses carried mandatory minimum penalties more often (74%) than all other drug trafficking offenses (57%).

USSC, Methamphetamine Trafficking Offenses In The Federal Criminal Justice System (June 13, 2024)

United States v. Robinson, Case No. 3:21-cr-00014 (S.D.Miss., December 23, 2022)

– Thomas L. Root