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The safety valve is a provision in the Sentencing Reform Act and the United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines that authorizes a sentence below the statutory minimum for certain nonviolent, non-managerial drug offenders with little or no criminal history.
The Guidelines are the product of the United States Sentencing Commission, which was created by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. [3] The Guidelines' primary goal was to alleviate sentencing disparities that research had indicated were prevalent in the existing sentencing system, and the guidelines reform was specifically intended to provide for determinate sentencing.
The federal sentencing statute, 18 U.S.C. 3553, contains a provision known as a "safety valve". The safety valve, located at § 3553(f), requires the trial courts to sentence qualifying defendants according to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, regardless of any statutory minimum sentences. Criteria for qualification are listed in § 3553(f)(1 ...
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). In October, 2013, both bills were still in committee. [2]
Safety Valve [17] was created in 1994 to reduce mandatory sentencing for drug offenders under the following provisions: the defendant does not have more than 1 criminal history point, as determined under the sentencing guidelines;
The exception to this rule occurs when the court determines that such use would violate the ex post facto clause of the Constitution – in other words, if the sentencing guidelines have changed so as to increase the penalty "after the fact", so that the sentence is more severe on the sentencing date than was established on the date that the ...
The bill was introduced on July 31, 2013, by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) and referred to the Judiciary Committee on October 20, 2013. It is related to the Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013, the Federal Prison Reform Act of 2013 (S. 1783) and others, in an effort to deal with the over-crowded, and under-funded, federal prison system.
[17] The "Drugs Minus Two Amendment" changed the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines to "reduce the applicable sentencing guideline range for most federal drug trafficking offenses." [ 17 ] The Commission voted to make the Amendment retroactive on July 18, 2014, "thereby allowing eligible offenders serving a previously imposed term of ...