PANEL ALLOWS EASING OF CRACK SENTENCES

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Sentencing Commission voted unanimously Tuesday
to allow some 19,500 federal prison inmates, most of them black, to
seek reductions in their crack cocaine sentences.

The commission, which sets guidelines for federal prison sentences,
decided to make retroactive its recent easing of recommended sentences
for crack offenses.

Most of those eligible could receive no more than a two-year cut in
their prison terms, but roughly 3,800 inmates could be released from
prison within a year after the March 3 effective date of Tuesday's
decision. Federal judges will have the final say whether to reduce
sentences.

The commissioners said the delay until March would give judges and
prison officials time to deal with public safety and other issues.

The commission took note of objections raised by the Bush
administration, but said there is no basis to treat convicts sentenced
before the guidelines were changed differently from those sentenced
after the changes.

The sentencing commission recently changed the guidelines to reduce
the disparity in prison time for the two crimes. The new guidelines
took effect Nov. 1.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions of Vermont, a commission member,
said the vote on retroactivity will have the "most dramatic impact on
African-American families." A failure to act "may be taken by some as
particularly unjust," Sessions said before the vote.

Four of every five crack defendants is black. Most powder cocaine
convictions involve whites.

Even after the change, prison terms for crack cocaine still are two to
five times longer on average than sentences for powder cocaine, the
result of a 20-year-old decision by Congress to treat crack more
harshly. The commission first said in 1995 that there was no evidence
to support such disparate treatment.

Relatives of prison inmates filled the meeting room and applauded
loudly following the 7-0 vote. But several family members and
commissioners called on Congress to overhaul cocaine sentencing laws.

"The debate needs to shift from the Sentencing Commission to
Congress," said Julie Stewart, president and founder of Families
Against Mandatory Minimums. "That disparity between crack and powder
and all of its injustices continues."

Several bills have been introduced to further reduce or eliminate the
disparity. The Senate is expected to hold hearings on the legislation
next year.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey restated the administration's
opposition to retroactivity before the commission voted.

"Our position is clear," Mukasey, a former federal judge, said at a
news conference Tuesday. "We oppose it."

The attorney general said the convicted crack offenders were sentenced
under an existing standard and to change that standard retroactively
dismisses any mitigating factors the sentencing judge considered when
deciding how long a prison term to set.

In addition, the release of inmates would cause problems for
communities whose probation and supervisory systems are not ready to
receive crack offenders, he said.

Several commissioners said they expect judges will use their power to
deny sentence reductions in some case. "I fully expect that a number
of individuals who are a danger to the community will not in fact
receive any reduction in sentence," said commission member Michael
Horowitz, a former federal prosecutor.

Tuesday's vote follows two Supreme Court rulings Monday that upheld
judges who rejected federal sentencing guidelines as too harsh and
imposed more lenient prison terms, including one for crack offenses.

In the crack case, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's majority opinion said
Derrick Kimbrough's 15-year sentence was acceptable, although
guidelines called for 19 to 22 years. "In making that determination,
the judge may consider the disparity between the guidelines' treatment
of crack and powder cocaine offenses," Ginsburg said.

Kimbrough is black.

So are 86 percent of the inmates who might see their prison terms for
crack offenses reduced after the commission approved retroactive
easing. By contrast, just over a quarter of those convicted of powder
cocaine crimes last year were black.

Congress wrote the harsher treatment for crack into a law that sets a
mandatory minimum of five years in prison for trafficking in 5 grams
of crack cocaine or 100 times as much powder cocaine.

Judges do not have the authority to impose sentences below the
mandatory minimum or grant reductions below the minimum sentences
written into the law.

Between 36,000 and 37,000 federal prison inmates, out of a population
of 200,000, are serving time for crack crimes. The prisoners who are
not eligible for shorter terms either already are serving the minimum
sentence, were sentenced for possession of massive quantities of crack
or are serving time under laws that apply to "career criminals."

In previous years, the sentencing commission reduced penalties for
crimes involving marijuana, LSD and OxyContin, which are primarily
committed by whites, and made those decisions retroactive.

But those changes combined did not affect as large a group as did
Tuesday's vote.