Judge Julie E. Carnes, a district court judge in the Northern District of Georgia, was appointed to the federal bench in 1992. She has been a member of the Judicial Conference Committee on Criminal Law since 2005, and has served as its chair since 2007.

Judge Julie E. Carnes, Northern District of Georgia

You participated in a National Sentencing Policy Institute held in Long Beach, California in June. What is the purpose of these meetings and who participates?

National Sentencing Policy Institutes are biennial meetings of federal judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and probation officers. These meetings feature panel discussions and presentations on current sentencing issues. The Criminal Law Committee works closely with the Federal Judicial Center (FJC), the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to develop the agenda, which this year included sessions on sentencing practices, post-Rita, Gall, and Kimbrough; retroactive application of the amended crack cocaine guideline; crime victims’ rights; and offender reentry and the Second Chance Act of 2007. The Institute also included a tour of the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island, during which participants were able to meet with inmates and staff.

As to the method for determining who will be invited to an Institute, each circuit is allotted a number of invitations for judges in proportion to the number of cases sentenced in that circuit in the preceding year. In addition, one United States attorney, one probation officer, and one federal defender from each circuit are invited to attend. The Criminal Law Committee members work with the FJC in extending these invitations.

What was the Criminal Law Committee’s position on the retroactivity of the amended sentencing guideline dealing with crack cocaine?

The Judicial Conference has previously expressed its opposition to the existing disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences and its support for a reduction of that difference. In a November 2, 2007, letter to the Sentencing Commission, the Criminal Law Committee expressed support for the retroactive application of the amended crack guideline. Judge Reggie Walton, a member of the Criminal Law Committee, subsequently testified at the Commission’s public hearing in support of the Committee’s recommendation that the amendment be made retroactive.

In December 2007, the Commission made the amendment retroactive, effective March 3, 2008. Did your Committee offer any guidance to district court judges?

We were aware that some districts had sentenced hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of defendants who were potentially subject to the retroactive guideline; many of these offenders would be entitled to immediate release if the reduction were granted. Thinking through and identifying the most efficient procedures to handle these cases was important. Accordingly, the Office of Probation and Pretrial Services (OPPS) at the Administrative Office, and the Criminal Law Committee, along with the chief probation officers of the Western District of North Carolina and the Eastern District of Missouri, planned two “summits” that were held in January in Charlotte, North Carolina and St. Louis, Missouri. Judges, probation officers, prosecutors, and federal defenders met to arrive at procedures that would work in their respective districts.

In addition, the Committee and the Commission introduced a new one-page order form (AO 247) that district courts could use in issuing sentencing modification orders in these cases. Designed to be less burdensome than the 24-page amended judgment form (AO 245C), this model order form captures the data needed by the Sentencing Commission.