PRISON BUST

Court Ruling Could Upend Drug Sentences

Thanks mainly to the war on drugs, the number of Americans in federal
prisons passed 100,000 for the first time this summer.

Narcotics convictions account for 60 percent of those federal inmates, up
from just 25 percent two decades ago. However, tens of thousands of those
convictions, and perhaps many more in state courts, are in doubt in the
wake of a little-noticed U.S. Supreme Court decision last month.

In the case called Apprendi vs. New Jersey, the high court ruled 5-4 that
any evidence apart from a prior conviction that is used to increase a
defendant's sentence beyond the statutory maximum must be weighed by a
jury, not a judge alone.

At first glance, the decision would seem to have little to do with
narcotics; the Apprendi case involved a defendant who pleaded guilty to
weapons violations after shooting at a black family's home. The judge found
those actions to be motivated by racism and, under New Jersey's hate-crimes
statutes, imposed a harsher sentence.

Wrong, said the Supreme Court: Because the hate motive was a question of
fact, not merely of law, it needed to be submitted to the jury like all
other evidence.

The rationale appears to extend far beyond hate-crimes statutes. As The
Washington Post reported Sunday, a federal appeals court last week ruled
that the Apprendi principle applies in thousands of federal drug cases.
Defense attorneys are already citing the precedent in appeals, and the U.S.
Department of Justice has formed an emergency committee to weigh the
implications.

Susan Klein, a University of Texas law professor and ex-federal prosecutor,
thinks she knows the implications.

"It's just going to be a disaster," Klein told the Post's Brooke A.
Masters. "Everybody and their brother is going to challenge their sentence,
as well they should."

If those challenges result in a reassessment of our society's approach to
illegal drug use, it would be the best kind of disaster. Evidence abounds
that the main casualties of the war on drugs are low-level dealers and
associates rather than the high-flying drug kingpins who ought to be the
primary targets.

Harsh, mandatory sentences are filling our penitentiaries to overflowing
with nonviolent offenders; despite an enormous prison-building spree,
federal lockups are still 27 percent over capacity. Taxpayers, of course,
foot the ever-increasing bill.

The Apprendi case reminds us that even law-breakers have the right to due
process. It might also mark the point at which we begin looking for better
ways to keep drugs from destroying our communities: treating the people who
need rehabilitation, and saving long-term prison beds for the violent
criminals who truly deserve to be locked away.