THE PLANK DECEMBER 10, 2007
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It's stellar news, no doubt, that the Supreme Court decided to let lower courts deviate ever-so-slightly from federal sentencing guidelines that, until now, have punished crack dealers as harshly as someone who sells 100 times as much powder cocaine. (Harlan Protass recently wrote a fine Slate piece summing up why the 100-to-1 disparity is such an outrage.)
But the disparity's far from gone: The defendant, Derrick Kimbrough, will get a 15-year sentence instead of 19 years—still more than he would've gotten for possessing powder cocaine. And the 100-to-1 ratio still applies to mandatory minimums, which are set by Congress: Five grams of crack gets treated like 500 grams of powder cocaine—both net five-year mandatory minimum prison terms. Since nearly 70 percent of all crack convictions result in minimum sentences, that's a huge deal. Above that level, judges now get more discretion, true, but only Congress can do away with the 100-to-1 disparity once and for all. (A few bills are floating around the House and Senate, sponsored by folks like Joe Biden and Orrin Hatch, but most politicians won't touch 'em.)
--Bradford Plumer
5 comments
Derrick's only hope for fairness is if those bills pass AND apply retroactively.
Oh, and:
www.politico.com/.../Brown_amp_Black_Forum_Clinton_on_the_right_on_drug_sentencing.html
- psantillana
December 10, 2007 at 6:00pm
This amounts to tinkering around the edges of a monster problem. Our idiotic "war on drugs" has produced more drug abuse and social disruption domestically, civil wars all over the Third World, and is one of the major factors distorting our foreign policy in crucial nations like Afghanistan and Mexico. What's needed is a root-and-branch change in policy. Derrick, and millions of people like him around the world, will be screwed systematically until that occurs.
- Robert Powell
December 11, 2007 at 2:01am
Since Republicans will reflexively refuse to consider easing penalties for crack, we should propose increasing the minimum penalties on powder cocaine to match those now in effect for crack. If Democrats proposed this, how could Republicans say no, since they are always and everywhere in favor of "tough on drugs"?
Then when rich white kids start getting caught up in the new harsher laws, we will see general action.
Besides, if powdered cocaine had been treated like crack in the 1970s, GWB would never have become president. He'd probably be in jail now.
Do you need any more convincing?
- nancyirving
December 11, 2007 at 3:47am
I need more convincing. This is sort of like advocating summary execution at the discretion of local law enforcement officials for turnstile jumping.
The basic problem is that drug abuse is a personal problem. It is not amenable to treatment by the legal justice system. Trying to mobilize the State to save people from themselves is a colossal error. See the Jacobins, or the collectivization of agriculture for policy errors of similar magnitude.
- Robert Powell
December 11, 2007 at 10:57am
But sometimes, fire with fire.
- nancyirving
December 12, 2007 at 7:25am