House panel approves bill to overhaul sentencing laws

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a rare bipartisan effort, the House Judiciary Committee today approved legislation that would make sweeping changes to U.S. sentencing laws, reducing prison time for some nonviolent drug offenders.

The bill, backed by voice vote, comes less than a month after the Senate's judiciary panel approved similar legislation. The aim of the bipartisan bills, the products of years of negotiations, is to reduce overcrowding in the nation's prisons, save taxpayer dollars and give some nonviolent offenders a second chance while keeping the most-dangerous criminals in prison.

Like the Senate bill, the House legislation would allow judges discretion to give lesser sentences than federal mandatory minimums, reducing mandatory life sentences for three-time, nonviolent drug offenders to 25 years. It would also reduce mandatory sentences for two-time offenders.

The legislation would apply those sentencing reductions retroactively, except for offenders who have prior serious violent felony convictions that resulted in a prison sentence of greater than 13 months.