Safety Valve Fairness Act of 2001

Safety Valve Fairness Act of 2001 - Makes retroactive the court's authority to apply sentencing guidelines instead of mandatory sentences to drug offenders who were first time, nonviolent drug offenders who were not leaders or organizers, did not use a firearm, and provided the Government with all the information they had about the offense.

[Congressional Bills 107th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 765 Introduced in House (IH)]







107th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 765

To amend title 18, United States Code, to provide retroactive effect to 
                  a sentencing safety valve provision.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           February 27, 2001

Mr. Wynn  (for himself, Ms. McKinney, Mr. Hinchey, Ms. Kilpatrick, Mrs. 
 Christensen, Mr. Clay, Mr. Towns, Ms. Lee, Mr. McGovern, Mr. Davis of 
 Illinois, Ms. McCarthy of Missouri, Mr. Cummings, Ms. Jackson-Lee of 
Texas, Mr. Owens, Mr. Payne, Mr. Stark, and Mr. Fattah) introduced the 
  following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To amend title 18, United States Code, to provide retroactive effect to 
                  a sentencing safety valve provision.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Safety Valve Fairness Act of 2001''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds that--
            (1) mandatory minimum sentencing laws, enacted in 1986, 
        require lengthy sentences for drug offenses and allow judges 
        little or no discretion to consider such factors as whether an 
        offender played only a minor role in a drug conspiracy or the 
        offender's potential for rehabilitation;
            (2) according to a December 2000 publication authored by 
        the Federal Bureau of Prisons, drug defendants comprise 57 
        percent of the Federal prison population, up from 38 percent in 
        1986 when mandatory sentencing laws were passed;
            (3) a provision in the 1994 Crime Bill, commonly known as 
        the ``safety valve'' provision, allows judges to apply 
        sentencing guidelines instead of mandatory sentences to drug 
        offenders who meet the criteria defined by Congress: first-
        time, nonviolent drug offenders who were not leaders or 
        organizers, did not use a firearm, and provided the government 
        with all the information they had about their cases;
            (4) the 1994 safety valve provision was not retroactively 
        applied and does not apply to sentences imposed on, or before 
        September 13, 1994; and
            (5) according to the 1999 Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing 
        Statistics, prepared by the United States Sentencing 
        Commission, in fiscal year 1999 nearly 21 percent of the 
        offenders sentenced for Federal drug crimes qualified for the 
        safety valve.

SEC. 3. EXTENSION OF APPLICATION OF LIMITATION ON STATUTORY MINIMUMS IN 
              CERTAIN CASES.

    (a) In General.--Section 3553(f) of title 18, United States Code, 
is amended by inserting ``whether or not the sentence for that offense 
was imposed before, on, or after the date of the enactment of this 
subsection,'' before ``the court shall impose a sentence''.
    (b) Effect on Existing Convictions.--The amendment made by this 
section shall apply with respect to sentences imposed before the date 
of enactment of this Act but not yet completed. A prisoner may who was 
so sentenced may petition for reconsideration of that sentence.
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