Black Lawmakers Criticize Clinton Over Cocaine Sentencing

By STEVEN A. HOLMES

WASHINGTON Sharply rebuking the White House, the Congressional
Black Caucus said Wednesday that President Clinton had not gone far enough
in recommending to Congress that the federal sentencing disparity between
crack and powder cocaine be only reduced rather than eliminated.

At a Capitol Hill news conference, members of the caucus said the harsher
treatment of defendants convicted of possessing small amounts of crack had
resulted in long prison sentences for disproportionate numbers of blacks.

They urged the Clinton administration to negotiate with congressional leaders
to make the penalties equivalent to those imposed in powdercocaine cases.

"We believe that strong law enforcement is a must," said the caucus'
chairwoman, Rep. Maxine Waters, DCalif. "But we believe that enforcement
must be just and fair. There is no rationale for a disparity in what triggers a
mandatory minimum sentence for cocaine possession."

The difference in how the federal courts are required to treat crack and powder
has long been a sore point among black civil rights groups and many liberal
lawmakers. Under current law, possession of as little as five grams of crack
means a mandatory minimum sentence of five years' imprisonment. In
contrast, the threshold for that mandatory minimum in a powdercocaine case
is 500 grams.

Tuesday, Clinton accepted a recommendation from Attorney General Janet
Reno and the president's drug policy adviser, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, retired,
that would raise the crack threshold to 25 grams and lower the powder
threshold to 250 grams. So, should that recommendation become law, the
cracktopowder sentencing disparity, currently 100 to 1, would be narrowed to
10 to 1.

The administration's task now is to convince Congress, which enacted the
100to1 disparity in 1986 as a way of responding to extraordinary violence
among dealers in crack, then a new drug.

At its news conference Wednesday, however, the black caucus said the
administration should be opening negotiations with Congress not by taking
the 10to1 position but instead by insisting on parity.

"When you enter in negotiations, we should ask for the whole thing, 1 to 1,
equal protection under the law," said Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., DIll. "Don't
come to the negotiations, Mr. President, with a 10to1 ratio, when it is clearly
unfair and unjust."

Later in the day, members of the caucus met with Ms. Reno, McCaffrey and
other administration officials. The administration side listened to the black
lawmakers' objections but said its position remained the same.

Federal officials say the greater violence associated with the crack trade,
although having declined since the 1980s, continues to warrant harsher
penalties for crack than for powder.

A spokesman for McCaffrey's office made that argument again Wednesday in
defending the administration's position.

"There is enough of a difference between that phenomenon the typical
crackselling situation and the typical powderedselling situation that
McCaffrey and the Justice Department agreed that it was necessary to keep a
stiffer sanction on the side of the crack sales," said the spokesman, Don Maple.

Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company