NAACP Legal Defense Fund
Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, issued the following statement on the First Step Act criminal justice reform bill:
“The revised First Step Act, S. 3649 is the latest modest step on the path to true criminal justice reform. We are gratified that this bill now includes two measures we identified early-on as essential to its legitimacy – some meaningful sentencing reform and the retroactive application of the provisions of the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), the 2010 law that reduced the obscene and racist powder and crack cocaine sentencing disparity. LDF has long argued, including in litigation, that the FSA must be applied retroactively.