In the case of Edward Dorsey, Sr. v. United States (2011), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a law reducing mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine offenses should apply to those who committed their crimes before the law was enacted but were sentenced after its enactment. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced the disparity in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine offenses from a 100:1 ratio to an 18:1 ratio, addressing concerns about racial discrimination in drug sentencing laws as African Americans were disproportionately convicted for crack offenses compared to white defendants with powder cocaine charges. However, it did not specify whether it applied retroactively or only prospectively - hence this case's significance where Dorsey had been charged prior to but sentenced after this act came into effect.

In the dissenting opinion for Edward Dorsey, Sr., v. United States (2011), Justice Scalia argued that the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 should not be applied retroactively to those who committed crimes before it was enacted but were sentenced after its enactment. He contended that Congress had a clear intent when drafting and passing this law: to reduce sentences for future offenses, not past ones. According to him, applying this act retrospectively would go against Congress's explicit instructions and disrupt the finality of legal proceedings by potentially reopening thousands of cases already settled under previous laws. Furthermore, he stated that such an interpretation could lead to unequal treatment among offenders based on arbitrary factors like sentencing delays or appeals processes rather than their actual conduct or criminal history.