New Sentencing Guidelines For Crack, New Challenges

"Your Honor, I was very stupid and I made some bad choices," he said. "I was young and I was crazy."

Last month, Hogan reduced Williams's sentence to 24 years. He has a little more than three years left to serve. "Going from life to just 3 1/2 years in prison, that is a huge thing," Petras said. "That is very satisfying. You can't beat the feeling. You have this guy who has life, and now he will get out in his 40s. Amazing."

Other cases present more complicated legal arguments.

Ricardo E. Epps pleaded guilty in 1999 to distributing crack cocaine in a deal that required the judge to sentence him to more than 15 years. Petras has argued in court papers that Epps would not have agreed to that sentence if there had been a lower guideline range and that he has served enough time. Prosecutors countered that a federal judge has no authority to undo such a deal.

The biggest legal issue facing the cases is whether judges can reduce sentences below the new guideline ranges. In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that the guidelines, once mandatory, were only advisory. To appease concerns about sentence reductions being larger than intended under the new rules, the commission said judges could not resentence offenders to terms below the new ranges. But Petras has persuaded three judges to do just that, winning immediate release for two inmates.

Marvin Ragland, a 49-year-old crack dealer who was sentenced in 1998 to more than 15 years in prison, was ordered released in August with time served. If the judge had reduced his sentence to the low end of the new guidelines, Ragland would have faced 18 more months behind bars.

"Those extra months mean a lot," said Ragland, who is living with his grandmother in Northeast Washington. "I'm home and I'm free. Every day matters."