SENSIBLE JUDGMENTS

With a welcome dose of common sense, the U.S. Supreme Court has made
it clear that federal sentencing guidelines are advisory, not
mandatory, and that a judge is still free to exercise discretion,
depending on the circumstances of the case. The court's reiteration
of the principle that judges should use their judgment is
particularly appropriate in drug cases, where mandatory minimum
sentences are often unnecessarily harsh and disparate punishments
involving crack and powder cocaine are especially glaring.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission's unanimous vote yesterday in favor of
a retroactive review of many of these sentences should help restore
some fairness, but it comes after too many people have already served
too much time. Congress needs to enact more comprehensive relief.

The guidelines that went into effect in 1987 were meant to address
widely uneven sentences, particularly among racial and ethnic groups,
but they helped exacerbate the problem. Viewing different forms of
cocaine as more or less potent and dangerous sent many urban,
minority crack users and sellers to prison for longer terms than
their mostly white counterparts who were using and dealing powder
cocaine. Many judges who departed from the guidelines - usually
offering more leniency - were slapped down by appellate courts.

In two decisions announced this week, a 7-2 majority of the Supreme
Court agreed that sentencing judges should have more latitude. The
majority reiterated that trial judges can base their sentences on a
number of factors and that appellate courts should not think that
deviating from the guidelines is unreasonable. That was found to be
especially true in one case where the trial judge's disagreement with
the crack-powder cocaine disparity was a key reason for the deviation.

The court majority's view on that issue was reinforced by the
commission's vote yesterday to apply its earlier recommendation to
reduce average sentences for crack users retroactively to about
19,500 inmates, including 279 in Maryland. But even as the commission
has taken important steps to amend the guidelines, Congress needs to
adjust the drug laws to which the guidelines apply. The House and
Senate have been slow to move on bipartisan bills to change the
100-to-1 ratio for amounts of cocaine powder compared with crack that
qualify for mandatory minimum sentences. This week's actions by the
high court and the commission make Congress' failure to end that
disparity even more inexcusable.