Sentencing – FSA – equal protection

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Sentencing
FSA; equal protection

It does not violate the Equal Protection Clause to decline to make the Fair Sentencing Act retroactive.

“Speed makes the incontestable point that refusing to apply the FSA to defendants sentenced shortly before the passage of the FSA results in radically different sentences between them and those who are entitled to have the FSA apply to them. He contends that this is an utterly arbitrary outcome—so bad as to violate the Fifth Amendment.”

“Because no fundamental right or suspect classification is at issue, we review his claim under the rational- basis standard of review. Smith v. City of Chicago, 457 F.3d 643, 650 (7th Cir. 2006). Under this standard, he must show that there is no ‘rational relationship between the disparity of treatment and some legitimate governmental purpose.’ United States v. Nagel, 559 F.3d 756, 760 (7th Cir. 2009). But the disparate treatment to which Speed points is plainly rational, as ‘discrepancies among persons who committed similar crimes are inescapable whenever Congress raises or lowers the penalties for an offense.’ United States v. Goncalves, 642 F.3d 245, 253 (1st Cir. 2011). Someone, in the end, will always be left behind to live with the earlier, harsher penalty, whenever Congress chooses to amend a sentencing statute. Whatever arbitrariness there may be is therefore unavoidable.”

Affirmed.

10-1532 U.S. v. Speed

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, McCuskey, J., Wood, J.

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