Considerin Post-Arrest Rehabilitation of Addicted Offenders Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines

On May 31, 1990, Tina Marie Floyd, a single mother of four, was sentenced by a Minnesota federal district court for distributing cocaine and cocaine base (crack) and for aiding and abetting its distribution, charges to which she previously had plead guilty. District Court Judge Rosenbaum sentenced Floyd to sixteen days imprisonment, six months of home detention, and five years of supervised release. According to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines ("Guidelines"), the judge should have sentenced her to 78-97 months in prison. Judge Rosenbaum chose to depart from the Guidelines because he recognized Floyd's remarkable achievement in the year between her arrest and sentencing: she had successfully rehabilitated herself from drug addiction.