DRUG LAWS CALLED UNFAIR TO MINORITIES

WASHINGTON - More than 200 inmates incarcerated in federal prisons in
Connecticut for crack cocaine offenses could see their sentences cut
by an average of 27 months under a plan contemplated by the U.S.
Sentencing Commission.

The independent commission is considering applying newly established
crack cocaine sentencing guidelines retroactively to those sentenced
prior to Nov. 1, when the guidelines took effect.

In Connecticut, the retroactive proposal would mean that 57 federal
inmates would be eligible for release within the first year, 87 more
would be eligible for release in the following five years and another
47 after that.

Overall, 19,482 federal inmates sentenced between Oct. 1, 1991 and
June 30, 2007 could be eligible for a reduced penalty with as many as
3,800 freed within the next year.

Cliff Thorton, executive director of Hartford-based Efficacy, a
nonprofit social justice organization, said there is a definite
racial and socio-economic bias in the nation's drug laws. "There are
two types of justice - one for the well-connected and one for the
unconnected," he said.

Thorton pointed out that those convicted of drug crimes involving
crystal methamphetamine - a drug popular in rural, White America - do
not face similarly stringent sentencing guidelines even though the
drug is considered as dangerous as crack.

"The driver behind this whole thing is money and the glue is race. If
whites were incarcerated for drugs like this there would literally be
armed insurrection," he said.

While applauding the proposed changes, Thorton said more needs to be
done to repair the damage of two decades of discrimination that has
"screwed up the lives" of not only the crack convicts but their
families and communities. "I feel strongly that we have to look at
what we are going to do with all these people. We've screwed up their
lives forever. It is difficult to reintegrate into the community and
it will be tough to get jobs," he said. "And, I'd be willing to bet
that the kids on the street today - one or both of their parents is
serving time for drug charges."

Congress established harsh mandatory minimum penalties for crack
cocaine in 1986 after the death of University of Maryland basketball
star Len Bias, who had just been selected as the top NBA pick by the
Boston Celtics. Bias died after snorting powder cocaine. Since then,
more than 76,000 crack offenders have been sentenced under the
federal guidelines. In 2000, the average prison sentence for
trafficking in crack was 117 months, while the average sentence for
trafficking in powder cocaine was 74 months.

The commission, which was established in 1984 to bring more
consistency to sentencing in federal courts, has recommended a
reduction in harsh sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine offenses
since 1995 but had been thwarted by Congress until this year. This
May, the commission again proposed reducing penalties for crack
cocaine to bring them more in line with powdered cocaine and Congress
took no action to block the effort. The new guidelines took effect
Nov. 1. The change is expected to reduce new crack sentences by an
average of 15 months.

The commission is now deciding whether to apply the guidelines
retroactive as it has done previously when it reduced sentences
involving LSD and for growing marijuana. More than 33,000 letters of
comment have already been sent to the commission on the retroactive
proposal. The commission also recently held a public hearing on the
subject at Georgetown University School of Law.

The Bush administration opposes the new plan, arguing that it would
overburden federal courts and release potentially dangerous drug offenders.

U.S. Attorney Gretchen Shappert, who serves in the Western District
of North Carolina, argued against applying the sentencing guidelines
retroactively saying it would harm African-American communities.
"Crack cocaine is not a victimless crime. The victims are the people
who are addicted to it, their neighbors and the communities," she
said. "They create open-air drug markets where there is 24-hour-a-day
dealing in relatively small quantities of crack that profoundly
impact the community."

Shappert also argued that going back to review the 536 defendants in
her district that could be eligible for a reduced sentence would take
time away from prosecuting new cases.

"We have seen, in the past year and the past three years in
Charlotte, a significant rise in the murder rate, an increase in
violence. Indeed, the murder rate has gone up 44 percent since 2005
and has remained at that level," she said.

U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor in Connecticut agreed with Shappert and
said he is concerned that revising prior sentences for crack
convictions would burden his office and the courts.

"One of the challenges is not just the number of cases involved but
many of the prosecutors in those cases have left the office," he
said. "So we would have to have someone else get up to speed on those
files that have not been looked at for years."

O'Connor said that his office has focused most of its drug
enforcement strategy on those bringing large quantities of drugs into
the state rather than on the street-level dealer. Most of the cases
involve crack cocaine or heroin, which tend to be the drugs of choice
in Connecticut.

State Rep. Michael Lawlor, who co-chairs the Judiciary Committee,
said that treating crack cocaine differently than powdered cocaine is
unfair and ineffective.

"We are talking about different penalties for the same drug. It would
be like having one penalty for drunk driving if you drank whiskey and
a different penalty if you drank beer," Lawlor said.

Until 1995, Connecticut imposed higher penalties for those convicted
of drug crimes involving an ounce of powdered cocaine or 0.5 grams of
crack cocaine. State lawmakers tried to raise the "trigger" to an
ounce for both types of cocaine but Gov. Jodi Rell vetoed that bill.

A compromise was reached later, setting the "trigger" at 0.5 ounces
for each variety.

Beyond the obvious disparity in setting different standards for
essentially the same drug crime, the law also drew sharp criticism as
unfairly targeting poor African-Americans.

Of the 19,482 federal inmates that could receive a reduced sentence
for possession and distribution of crack cocaine 86 percent are
African-American, 8 percent Hispanic and 6 percent white, according
to the commission's analysis.

The commission did not break down the racial or ethnic profiles of
the 217 Connecticut inmates that could be eligible for a reduced
sentence. Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau,
urged the commission earlier this month to make the sentencing
guidelines retroactive.

"Few people today argue that policy makers could have foreseen, 20
years ago, the vastly disparate impact the 1986 law would have on
communities of color, yet the fact that African-Americans and
especially low-income African-Americans continue to be
disproportionately and severely penalized at much greater rates than
white Americans for drug use," she said.

While 83 percent of those convicted of federal cocaine offenses are
African-American, the federal government's most recent survey found
that less than 18 percent of the nation's crack cocaine users were
African-American, Shelton said.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton also told the commission that
the sentencing disparity between crack and powdered cocaine is
fundamentally unfair to the African-American community that has seen
a "disproportionate number" of African- American males incarcerated
for significant periods of time as a result of their involvement in
crack cocaine.

After some soul searching, Walton said he also came to believe that
the new guidelines should apply retroactively.

"I just don't see how, in good faith, one can say that just because
someone was sentenced on October 30th, that they get a certain
sentence, whereas someone who's sentenced on November 1st receives a
different sentence," he said.

While the commission can take some steps to reduce the disparity in
sentencing, it cannot change the mandatory minimum and maximum
sentences in the law enacted by Congress.

Congress, however, is contemplating those changes in at least three
bills that have been introduced in the Senate.

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., has proposed legislation that would eliminate
sentencing differences between crack and powder cocaine in favor of a
single mandatory minimum at the current powder cocaine levels.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has introduced a bill this year that would
increase the amount of crack cocaine needed to trigger the five-year
mandatory minimum sentences from five to 25 grams and the 10-year
mandatory minimum from 50 to 250 grams.

And, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., has proposed a bill that would raise
the crack cocaine "trigger" to 20 grams for the five-year minimum
sentence and 200 grams for the 10-year minimum. It would also reduce
the "trigger" for powdered cocaine from 500 grams to 400 grams for
the five-year minimum and 5 kilograms to 4 kilograms for the 10-year minimum.