COURT RESTORES SOME SANITY TO CRACK SENTENCES

The U.S. Supreme Court has taken what should have been an obvious
step toward more sensible sentencing -- though apparently it hasn't
been obvious enough for Congress to fix the mistake it made some two
decades ago. The result is a modest step toward equity in sentencing
practices. Some two decades ago, in 1986, following the tragic
cocaine-related death of basketball star Len Bias and in the midst of
a panic about a crack "epidemic," Congress amended sentencing
"guidelines" to increase the penalties for crack cocaine as compared
to the powder version. Possession of 50 grams of crack has long
carried the same penalty as possession of 5,000 grams of powder cocaine.

Over the years numerous studies have documented that while
African-Americans and white people use cocaine at about the same rate
as a percentage of the general population, African-Americans are more
likely to use the cooked crack type, while white people tended to use
the powder. On top of the fact that black people tend to be arrested
in disproportionate numbers for drug possession, then, they ended up
serving grotesquely long sentences for having the more demonized
version of cocaine.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission, along with most judges, has been
aware of this disparity for some time. Recently it amended its
sentencing guidelines to reduce the crack/powder disparity, though
not by much. This week, it decided to apply its decision
retroactively, meaning some 19,000 people serving absurdly long
sentences will be eligible to appeal their sentences. The Supreme
Court contributed to returning some common sense to sentencing by
overturning two appellate court decisions that had overturned two
sentences imposed by trial judges.

In one case, a judge in Virginia sentenced a Gulf War veteran who
possessed 56 grams of crack to 15 years instead of the 19-23 years
the guidelines dictated. In another, an Iowa man who had given up
selling and using drugs and gotten a college education long before
the police got the evidence to convict him for his previous drug
selling got a suspended sentence instead of 30 to 37 years.

By a 7-2 margin (Justices Alito and Thomas dissenting), the high
court ruled that the trial judges in these cases exercised
permissible discretion in sentencing.

The Supreme Court and Sentencing Commission have set the stage for a
modest reduction of the inequity inherent in the crack/powder
sentencing disparity. However, Congress really should act to
eliminate it altogether -- or to end the ridiculous war on drugs that
has created so much more misery.