Since the Supreme Court’s decisions in Blakely1 and Booker,2 sentencing jurisprudence has undergone a virtual revolution. But at least one stalwart remains—mandatory minimums.
Though the proliferation of mandatory minimum sentences is a relatively new phenomenon, mandatory sentences date back to the federal government’s first criminal statute, the Crimes Act of 1790. Many of the punishments in the act have been abolished—for example, mutilation of the corpse of a person who committed treason after he was put to death—but some are still good law, including a mandatory minimum of 10 years for holding out false light to a sailing vessel and a mandatory life sentence for piracy.3 Congress has at times enacted mandatory minimums to address particular concerns, such as bribing meat inspectors,4 but they were never comprehensively aimed at a whole class of criminal conduct.
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