Justices Mull First Step Act Resentencings in Crack Cases (1)

The Supreme Court considered multiple options for how judges should handle crack-cocaine resentencings, with some justices exploring an approach that neither side advocated.

How the court decides the dispute, argued Wednesday, could affect thousands of prisoners trying to reduce stiff prison terms imposed under the Reagan-era drug-war regime that disproportionately impacted Black people.

The appeal was brought by Carlos Concepcion, who pleaded guilty to crack-cocaine charges in 2008 and, in 2009, was sentenced to 19 years in federal prison. That was just a year before the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act, which narrowed the disparity between crack- and powder-cocaine penalties. The ...