justice safety valve act of 2013 brands

The Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013 (H.R. 1695 in the House or S. 619 in the Senate) is a bill in the 113th United States Congress.minimum sentences under certain circumstances.

The bill amends the federal criminal US code of the United States title 18, Part II, Chapter 227, Subchapter A, Section 3553 Imposition of a Sentence. It aimed to authorize a federal court to impose a sentence below a statutory minimum if necessary to avoid violating federal provisions prescribing factors courts must consider in imposing a sentence. It requires the court to give parties notice of its intent to impose a lower sentence and to state in writing the factors requiring such a sentence.

On November 21, 2013, the United States Senate Judiciary Committee convened in a rescheduled Executive Business Meeting. The meeting was to discuss and possibly vote on moving forward with the Justice Safety Valve Act. Other related Acts include the S.1410, "The Smarter Sentencing Act of 2013" (Durbin, Lee, Leahy, Whitehouse) and

S.1675, Recidivism Reduction and Public Safety Act of 2013 (Whitehouse, Portman). The Justice Safety Valve Act became one of many new bills to address prison overcrowding and the soaring cost to the American taxpayers. A quorum was not present at the meeting and the Chairman had to postpone discussion and possible vote on the Justice Safety Valve Act. The bills were held over by the Senate Judiciary Committee through the end of 2013 and January 2014. The bills were worked on to merge the language of the Smarter Sentencing Act (H.R. 3382/S. 1410) and the Justice Safety Valve Act (H.R. 1695/S. 619) along with a new bill, S. 1783 the Federal Prison Reform Act of 2013, introduced by John Cornyn (R-TX).

The bill summary was written by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan division of the Library of Congress. It reads, "Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013 - Amends the federal criminal code to authorize a federal court to impose a sentence below a statutory minimum if necessary to avoid violating federal provisions prescribing factors courts must consider in imposing a sentence. Requires the court to give the parties notice of its intent to impose a lower sentence and to state in writing the factors requiring such a sentence."

113th Congress (2013) (April 24, 2013). "H.R. 1695: Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013". Legislation. GovTrack.us. Retrieved October 26, 2013. Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013

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I have great news to share with you. Today, U.S. Representatives Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced the Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013, H.R. 1695, in the U.S. House of Representatives. In March, U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced an identical version of the Justice Safety Valve Act, S. 619, in the U.S. Senate.

This is so exciting because now, for the first time since the crack cocaine reforms of 2010, there is a sentencing reform bill with bipartisan support in both houses of Congress!

It’s a big deal because it will end the injustice of 30 years of federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws. I received 19 years and 7 months in federal prison for my involvement in a nonviolent methamphetamine offense. Four months after I was sentenced, Congress, at FAMM’s urging, created the safety valve for federal drug offenders. I fit the drug safety valve’s criteria, but it was not made retroactive, so it didn’t help me — I was sentenced four months too early for a reform that, since its passage, has helped 80,000 others. I served every day of my sentence.

The new House bill and its companion in the Senate are not retroactive, either. They won’t help any of the amazing women I left behind when I left prison. But they will help people just like me who haven’t been sentenced yet.

I know that I didn’t need to serve 19 years in prison to get sober, get educated, and get to the point where I knew I would never commit another crime. And I know that, without the Justice Safety Valve Act, thousands of other parents like me will spend decades away from their kids, at huge costs to taxpayers, with little or no benefit to the public.

The Justice Safety Valve Act would create a brand-new, broad “safety valve” that would apply to all federal crimes carrying mandatory minimum sentences. If it becomes law, it would allow judges to sentence people below the mandatory minimum sentence whenever that minimum term does not fulfill the goals of punishment. In a nutshell,the bill would give judges flexibility to end the injustices produced by mandatory minimum sentences!

But injustice won’t end without your help. Click here to write to your members of Congress today and tell them to support H.R. 1695, the Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013!

I’m so grateful for the strong leadership of Representatives Scott and Massie and Senators Leahy and Paul, who understand that future generations are counting on us to reform mandatory sentencing laws today.

Many of you know all too well what it means to lose a loved one to a mandatory minimum sentence.Let’s work together to ensure that no one else suffers what we have suffered.

On March 20, 2013, Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced the Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013, S. 619, in the U.S. Senate. The bill creates a brand-new, broad “safety valve” that would apply to all federal crimes carrying mandatory minimum sentences. If passed, the Justice Safety Valve Act would allow judges to sentence people below the mandatory minimum sentence whenever that minimum term does not fulfill the goals of punishment. In a nutshell, if passed, the bill would restore sentencing discretion to judges in all federal cases where a mandatory minimum applies! Now is the time to write your Congresspersons and Senators or contact Families Against Mandatory Minimums for more information.

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

Congress changed all of that in the First Step Act. In expanding the number of people covered by the safety valve, Congress wrote that a defendant now must only show that he or she “does not have… (A) more than 4 criminal history points… (B) a prior 3-point offense… and (C) a prior 2-point violent offense.”

The “safety valve” was one of the only sensible things to come out of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, the bill championed by then-Senator Joe Biden that, a quarter-century later, has been used to brand him a mass-incarcerating racist.  The safety valve was intended to let people convicted of drug offenses as first-timers avoid the crushing mandatory minimum sentences that Congress had imposed on just about all drug dealing.

Eric Lopez got caught smuggling meth across the border. Everyone agreed he qualified for the safety valve except for his criminal history. Eric had one prior 3-point offense, and the government argued that was enough to disqualify him. Eric argued that the First Step Actamendment to the “safety valve” meant he had to have all three predicates: more than 4 points, one 3-point prior, and one 2-point prior violent offense.

Last week, the 9th Circuit agreed. In a decision that dramatically expands the reach of the safety valve, the Circuit applied the rules of statutory construction and held that the First Step amendment was unambiguous. “Put another way, we hold that ‘and’ means ‘and.’”

“We recognize that § 3553(f)(1)’s plain and unambiguous language might be viewed as a considerable departure from the prior version of § 3553(f)(1), which barred any defendant from safety-valve relief if he or she had more than one criminal-history point under the Sentencing Guidelines… As a result, § 3553(f)(1)’s plain and unambiguous language could possibly result in more defendants receiving safety-valve relief than some in Congress anticipated… But sometimes Congress uses words that reach further than some members of Congress may have expected… We cannot ignore Congress’s plain and unambiguous language just because a statute might reach further than some in Congress expected… Section 3553(f)(1)’s plain and unambiguous language, the Senate’s own legislative drafting manual, § 3553(f)(1)’s structure as a conjunctive negative proof, and the canon of consistent usage result in only one plausible reading of § 3553(f)(1)’s“and” here: “And” is conjunctive. If Congress meant § 3553(f)(1)’s “and” to mean “or,” it has the authority to amend the statute accordingly. We do not.”

On April 9, the civil rights community embraced a formidable coalition of more than 175 entertainers, athletes, elected officials and other notable figures who organized a rallying cry against mass incarceration and the War on Drugs in favor of prevention and rehabilitation. In a letter to President Obama spearheaded by hip-hop legend Russell Simmons, the coalition thanked his administration for directing more funds toward drug prevention  and  local re-entry grants and made recommendations for combating the problems that drive the vicious cycle of “incarceration, broken families, juvenile delinquency, violence and poverty.”

In a press statement, the Drug Policy Alliance said the coalition is urging President Obama to “extend the Fair Sentencing Act to all inmates who were sentenced under the 100-to-1 crack/powder disparity, support the principles of the Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013 (which allows judges to set aside mandatory minimum sentences when they deem appropriate), and supporting the Youth PROMISE Act” (Youth Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support, and Education Act), which confronts violence and gang intervention and prevention work.

Statistics show that almost half of the prison population is made up of drug offenders. According to The Sentencing Project, of those incarcerated for drugs, two thirds are Blacks and other minoritieseven though rates of drug use are comparable among racial groups. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, one in nine Black children have at least one incarcerated parent while one in 57 White children find themselves in that situation. These children not only suffer from the absence of their parent(s) at a basic human needs level, they are also at a higher risk of eventually falling into the juvenile delinquency or criminal justice system.

Over the past forty years, the War on Drugs has not decreased the rate of drug offenses in this country, according to Robert Rooks, director of the NAACP Criminal Justice Program.  Although the drug wars affects a many different communities, law enforcement particularly targets and criminalizes the Black community. This prevalence of racial discrimination as well as the broader ineffectiveness of current drug policies is why the coalition appealed to the president to take action.

Included among the members of the coalition are: Russell Simmons, Dr. Boyce Watkins, Sir Richard Branson, Will Smith, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Scarlett Johansson, Ron Howard, Jennifer Hudson, Demi Moore, Eva Longoria, Michael Moore, Mark Wahlberg, Harry Belafonte, Jada Pinkett Smith, Cameron Diaz, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Chris Rock, Russell Brand, John Legend, DJ Pauly D, Mike Tyson, Rick Ross, Jon Hamm, Natalie Maines, Ludacris.

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A little more than two million people in the United States – that’s one out of every 140 – are locked up, making the US the biggest jailer in the world.

Some hope that this obscenerate of human incarceration might begin to decline as reform of mandatory sentencing laws is close at hand. Last month, Attorney General Eric Holder denounced mandatory minimums and then backed up his words on September 19, with a directive to prosecutors to not apply mandatory sentences to low-level drug offenders. The day before, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimonies from advocates for sentencing reform urging the Committee to approve the Justice Safety Valve – a law that would restore sentencing discretion to judges.

That legislation not only enjoys bipartisan support, but an endorsement from none other than ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC has even authored its own version of the Justice Safety Valve.

As others have pointed out, ALEC might seem like an unlikely ally to a bill that seeks to take the mandatory out of mandatory minimum sentencing laws. As the stewards of America’s two largest for-profit private prison corporations, ALEC – a so-called bill mill for “free-market” legislation – was a champion of many of the harshest sentencing laws passed throughout the 1990’s, including “truth-in-sentencing” and “three-strikes” laws.These laws locked judges into a rigid matrix of sentencing guidelines that have been one of the primary causes for the swollen numbers in federal and state prisons over the past two decades.

But in fact, ALEC’s apparent change of heart has been a long time coming: according to Julie Stewart, President and Founder of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), David Koch, a significant donor to ALEC, “has donated generously and without fanfare to FAMM for many years”.

In April 2012, ALEC dissolved its Public Safety and Elections Task Force, the committee responsible for the aforementioned “tough-on-crime” sentencing laws, which once asserted as its goal, to “hold criminals accountable for their actions and provide swift and certain punishment for their crimes – without adding more government intrusions into law-abiding citizens’ lives”.

“We are eliminating the ALEC Public Safety and Elections task force that dealt with non-economic issues, and reinvesting these resources in the task forces that focus on the economy. The remaining budgetary and economic issues will be reassigned.”

But six months later, ALEC had simply established a new task force with a criminal justice focus – only now from a markedly different angle. The new Justice Performance Project states its goal is to “refocus criminal justice resources on dangerous offenders and put the right programs in place to hold non-violent offenders accountable while providing them with the resources they need to become contributing members of society.”

Echoing the “Right on Crime” critics of mass incarceration that find fault with the prison industrial complex merely for being economically inefficient, ALEC has assumed a position that is, ostensibly, a fiscally conservative one. Regardless of their rationale, long-time prison reform advocates warmly welcome ALEC to the table.

But while ALEC’s endorsement of mandatory sentencing reform is appreciated, how and what “alternatives” it is inclined to promote requires scrutiny. Indeed, as early as 2011, the Justice Policy Institute portended the organisation’s likely shift away from increasingly unpopular mass incarceration policies, noting the organisation was in the process of establishing a backdoor infrastructure that would enable its members to reap financial gain whenever the policymaking winds changed – anticipating an eventual public revulsion at the spectacle of a mass prisoner population that seems, in some part, to have happened.

For example, before the Public Safety and Elections Task Force was shut down in 2012, the American Bail Coalition (ABC) served as one of its executive members. Since 1993, ABC had cultivated such a reliable relationship with ALEC that in 2010 it called ALEC its “life preserver“. During its alliance with ALEC, ABC wrote at least 12 model bills. In 2007, ALEC and ABC proposed legislation that dressed itself up as a “solution” to prison overcrowding. The law would have allowed the early release of certain non-violent and juvenile offenders with the posting of a bond, thus providing its supporters – private bail agents – a new source of profit.

Since ABC formed as a coalition in service of the for-profit bail industry in 1992, the percentage of people sitting in US jails with a “pre-trial status” has increased from 50 to 63 percent, while average bail amounts have more than doubled. Today, as California Governor Jerry Brown ferrets out empty beds in which to stick the prisoners he refuses to let out a single day before their sentences have been served, more than 70 percent of California jails are filled with pre-trial cases – that is, men and women who are too poor to post bail or whose crime is so petty no bondsman considers it worth his time. Meanwhile, Brown doesn’t look poised to threaten California’s position as the Corrections Corporation of America’s (the largest private prison corporation) most lucrative state partner.

The dire need for mandatory sentencing reform cannot be understated. The two-decades reign of mandatory sentencing in US courtrooms is largely responsible for bringing us to the current state of affairs where 160,000 people – that’s one out of every nine prisoners – in the country are serving life sentences, as a new Sentencing Project report reveals.

However, reforming the sentencing system without removing the role of commercial enterprises in the criminal justice process will ensure that the field of opportunities to exploit the poor, vulnerable and easily “criminalised” underclass – with predictably and endlessly devastating results – remains wide open.