Dorsey v. United States and Hill v. United States

Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010 because it recognized that the 100:1 disparity between crack and powder cocaine that it had adopted in 1986 was unsupported by science and has had a severe, disproportionate impact on racial minorities. Because the purpose of the Act was “to restore fairness to Federal cocaine sentencing,” the amicus brief submitted by the ACLU and a coalition of other civil rights groups argues that Congress could not have intended for anyone to be sentenced under the old, discredited regime following the Act’s passage.