APPEALS COURT REINSTATES REAGAN-ERA DRUG SENTENCING LAWS

A federal appeals court on Friday reinstated a major drug-sentencing law
created during the Reagan administration, which could mean longer sentences
for those convicted in cases with large amounts of drugs.

In reversing its earlier ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals now
says a 1984 statute properly allows judges to increase prison sentences
based on the quantity of drugs found.

In August, a three-judge panel from the circuit found the law
unconstitutionally allowed a judge to increase a prison sentence based on
the amount of drugs found. The decision nullified a standard practice in
federal drug prosecutions.

That August decision also had cast into doubt thousands of drug
prosecutions throughout the circuit, which covers California, Nevada,
Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska and Hawaii.

But many of those doubts were ended Friday when the court, in reversing
itself, virtually supported the status quo.

The 9th Circuit originally said a judge could not enhance a defendant's
sentence based on the weight of the drugs because that's akin to being
punished for something that was never proven to a jury.

The decision was an outgrowth of a June ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court
that found a defendant is entitled to a jury decision, not a judge's, on
whether he acted out of racial bias when committing a crime. Racially
motivated crimes carry steeper sentences than others.

That case spilled over into the drug prosecution arena, and five federal
circuit courts of appeal ordered federal prosecutors to prove to a jury the
amount of drugs in question. The 9th circuit followed suit on Friday.

Those same circuits, including the 9th Circuit, left intact the judge's
discretion to enhance the sentence -- all the way to a life term -- based
on the quantity of drugs proven to a jury.

Because of highly technical federal sentencing guidelines, the court's
original August decision meant that federal drug traffickers in the circuit
could not be sentenced to more than 20 years.

The case decided Friday involved Calvin Buckland, who received a 27-year
sentence for possessing 17 pounds of methamphetamine in Seattle. The 9th
Circuit said in August that since the jury was never asked to find how much
of the drug was seized, the judge could not increase the sentence by seven
years based on his own conclusions on the amount of drugs discovered.

Friday's 8-3 decision reinstates the 27-year term.

The case is United States v. Buckland, 99-30285.