Unfair disparity in cocaine sentencing

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Dec 31, 2007

MOVEMENT toward more rational U.S. drug policies took two small steps this month with sound rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Now, the larger fix for sentencing disparities for crack and powder cocaine rests with Congress, which has sole authority to alter minimum sentences.

Members of the Sentencing Commission agreed to allow prisoners to seek reductions in sentences for crack cocaine that went into effect for new cases Nov. 1. Making the changes retroactive covers 19,500 federal inmates -- 86 percent of whom are black -- sentenced under unreasonably harsh guidelines. Judges can still refuse to grant lower sentences in cases they believe would pose undue safety risks.

In another welcome move, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of federal judges to ignore severe guidelines when appropriate and use discretion in sentencing drug defendants. Under a sentencing policy Congress enacted in 1986, a drug offender caught with only 5 grams of crack cocaine gets a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. It takes 500 grams of powder cocaine to get the same stretch.

Such draconian disparities -- the notorious 100-1 ratio -- have hit poor people and blacks especially hard and helped triple the nation's prison population over the last three decades. Crack is predominantly used by black people; powder cocaine, mostly by white people. Most states rightly treat crack and powder cocaine the same. The distinctions between the two are negligible, and federal law should treat them accordingly.

But these actions do not eliminate the unreasonably harsh minimum sentence for crack offenses. Only Congress can do that, either by lowering the mandatory minimum or, better yet, eliminating it. Mandatory minimum drug sentences, by imposing one-size-fits-all justice, are inherently unjust.

Detroit Free Press

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