United States v. Young (2013)

Douglas Young (defendant), convicted of narcotics charges under 21 U.S.C. Section 841, faced a potential doubling of his ordinarily five-year sentence under Section 851 because of a single prior conviction from 17 years earlier; Section 851 gave both the prosecutor and judge full discretionary authority over whether to seek and impose that enhancement, and for over 40 years the Department of Justice provided no guidance on how that discretion should be exercised. The Attorney General issued the first such guidelines only weeks before Young's case required a decision on whether to apply the enhancement.