Federal appeals court rules new crack cocaine sentencing guidelines not retroactive

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] Thursday rejected [opinion, PDF] a prisoner’s attempt to have new crack cocaine sentencing guidelines applied retroactively to reduce his sentence. The three-judge panel found that it could not infer congressional intent to apply the Fair Sentencing Act [S 1789 materials] to prisoners already convicted and serving the prior mandatory minimum. The Fair Sentencing Act amended existing law to reduce the current sentencing ratio from 100:1 to 18:1 to…