Dorsey v. United States

Dorsey v. United States
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 17, 2012 Decided June 21, 2012
Full case name	Edward Dorsey, Sr., Petitioner v. United States and Corey A. Hill, Petitioner v. United States
Docket no.	10-699
Citations	567 U.S. 260 (more) 132 S. Ct. 2321; 183 L. Ed. 2d 281; 2012 U.S. LEXIS 4664; 80 U.S.L.W. 4500
Case history
Prior	Defendant convicted, unpubl.[1] n°2:09-cr-20003 (C.D. Ill. 2010); sentence affirmed sub nom. United States v. Fisher, 635 F.3d 336 (7th Cir. 2011); rehearing en banc denied, 646 F.3d 429 (2011, per curiam) Motion for resentencing denied sub nom. United States v. Hill, unpubl. (N.D. Ill., 2010); affirmed 417 F. App'x 560 (7th Cir. 2011)
Holding
As established by the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, the lower mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine crimes apply to defenders who committed their offenses before the enactment of the law while also being sentenced for their offenses after the effective date of the law.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan
Case opinions
Majority	Breyer, joined by Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan
Dissent	Scalia, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Alito
Laws applied
Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, 124 Stat. 2372

Dorsey v. United States, 567 U.S. 260 (2012), is a Supreme Court of the United States decision in which the Court held that reduced mandatory minimum sentences for "crack cocaine" under the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 does apply to defendants who committed a crime before the Act went into effect but who were sentenced after that date. The Act's silence on how to apply its new rules, before the effective date or not, caused a split among the Justices on how to interpret its new lenient provisions. Specifically, the case centered on Edward Dorsey, a prior offender who had been convicted of possession before the new rules came into effect but was sentenced after the effective date.