[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 125 (Monday, September 30, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9596-S9597]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. LEVIN:
  S. 3017. A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to provide 
retroactive effect to a sentencing safety valve provision; to the 
Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce the Safety Valve 
Fairness Act. This bill addresses inequities in sentencing that were 
created by the passage of ``safety valve'' provisions contained in the 
1994 crime bill.
  Mandatory minimum sentencing laws allow judges little or no 
discretion in making sentencing determinations. An unfortunate 
byproduct of this lack of discretion has been the imposition of 
disproportionately long sentences for some relatively low-level 
nonviolent offenders.
  Congress acknowledged this in enacting so-called ``safety valve'' 
provisions as part of the 1994 crime bill. These provisions allowed a 
narrow class of offenders, that is individuals with no criminal 
history, who committed a nonviolent crime, were not leaders or 
organizers of the crime, and who cooperated fully with the government, 
to petition the court for a review of their sentence. However, the 
safety valve provisions did not apply to offenders sentenced before the 
bill became law in 1994. As a result, individuals who have arguably 
been most impacted by the mandatory minimum sentencing laws that the 
safety valve provisions sought to remedy, have been unable to benefit 
from their passage. This bill would rectify this situation by making 
the safety valve provisions retroactive to allow first-time nonviolent 
drug offenders convicted prior to the passage of the 1994 crime bill to 
petition the court for a reconsideration of their sentence.
  The existing safety valve law is not a ``get out of jail free'' card. 
It simply allows prisoners to petition the courts for reconsideration. 
In order to have the mandatory minimum sentenced modified, offenders 
must first demonstrate to the court that they meet the criteria I 
mentioned earlier. It is up to the court to determine whether an 
individual is eligible to have their sentence modified and that a 
modification is appropriate in each case. I believe the original safety 
valve provisions appropriately restored discretion to the courts and 
it's only fair that the law be changed so it applies equally to all 
individuals without regard to when they were convicted.
  Making the safety valve provisions retroactive would impact only an 
extremely small number of cases. According to the United States 
Sentencing Commission, only 25 to 40 currently incarcerated federal 
offenders would be eligible to petition the court to reconsider their 
sentences. All of these individuals have served at least eight years in 
prison and many have served significantly longer. Mr. President, I 
request unanimous consent to print a letter from the Sentencing 
Commission in the Record.
  The same considerations that motivated the Senate's original passage 
of the safety valve legislation apply to those offenders who were 
sentenced before 1994. Fairness dictates that all those offenders who 
meet the criteria set out in the safety valve law should have their 
cases heard and I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:


                                   U.S. Sentencing Commission,

                                    Washington, DC, June 24, 2002.
     Hon. Carl Levin,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, D.C.
       Dear Senator Levin: Thank you for your June 14, 2002, 
     letter inquiring about the number of federal offenders who 
     would be affected if the ``safety valve'' provision enacted 
     on September 13, 1994, were made retroactive. We estimate 
     that 25 to 40 federal offenders currently incarcerated would 
     benefit if the safety valve provision of the 1994 Crime Bill 
     were made retroactive to cases sentenced prior to September 
     13, 1994.
       We cannot provide a more exact figure because of a number 
     of data limitations. In order for the safety valve to apply, 
     the sentencing judge must find that the offender meets 
     certain criteria defined by Congress. For example, one such 
     criterion is whether the defendant truthfully provided to the 
     Government all information and evidence the defendant had 
     concerning the offense or offenses that were part of the same 
     course of conduct or of a common scheme or plan. Because this 
     criterion was not relevant to sentencing prior to the 
     enactment of the safety valve provision, presentence reports 
     for cases sentenced prior to September 13, 1994, do not

[[Page S9597]]

     necessarily address this factor. As a result, to respond to 
     your inquiry we had to use receipt of a sentencing reduction 
     for acceptance of responsibility as a rough proxy for this 
     particular safety valve criterion, which may overstate or 
     understate the actual number of offenders who would meet this 
     criterion if the safety value were made retroactive. Proxies 
     for certain other safety valve criterion also had to be used. 
     In addition, the Commission does not have complete data with 
     respect to release dates for offenders.
       I hope you find this information helpful.
           Sincerely,
     Diana E. Murphy.

                          ____________________