Biden Switch Unlikely to Save Crack Offenders at High Court (1)

People convicted of low-level crack possession seem unlikely to get a federal sentencing break from the U.S. Supreme Court, despite backing from the Biden administration and a bipartisan group of senators behind a criminal justice reform law that they said allows for such relief.

Hearing its last argument of the term on Tuesday, nearly all of the justices cast doubt on the claim that the 2018 First Step Act provides re-sentencing for the lowest-level offenders, even though a ruling against the defense would have the anomalous result of allowing re-sentencing for kingpins.

While justices acknowledged that oddity, the court sounded ...