A 27-year sentence was too harsh for a man who led an international but nonviolent conspiracy to smuggle heroin into the United States, according to the judge who sentenced him in 1995 and ruled last week that the man should be released early.

Eastern District Judge Jack Weinstein also ruled that the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s special instruction not to release any offenders before Nov. 1 whose sentences were reduced due to recent changes to the sentencing guidelines is unconstitutional.