High Court Eases Crack Sentence Guidelines

Decision Giving Judges Greater Discretion May Ease Racial Disparity In Cocaine-Fueled Jail Time

(CBS/AP)  The Supreme Court on Monday said judges may impose shorter prison terms for crack cocaine crimes, enhancing judicial discretion to reduce the disparity between sentences for crack and cocaine powder.

The crack disparity has long had racial overtones, reports CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews. For crack dealers, who are mostly black, 50 grams draws a 10-year minimum sentence. But for powder dealers, who are mostly white, it takes 5 kilos to draw 10 years, a 100-1 difference.

By a 7-2 vote, the court said Monday that a 15-year sentence given to Derrick Kimbrough, a black veteran of the 1991 war with Iraq, was acceptable, even though federal sentencing guidelines called for Kimbrough to receive 19 to 22 years.

In a separate sentencing case that did not involve crack cocaine, the court also ruled in favor of judicial discretion to impose more lenient sentences than federal guidelines recommend.

The challenges to criminal sentences center on a judge's discretion to impose a shorter sentence than is called for in guidelines established by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, at Congress' direction. The guidelines were adopted in the mid-1980s to help produce uniform punishments for similar crimes.

The cases are the result of a decision three years ago in which the justices ruled that judges need not strictly follow the sentencing guidelines.

"The decision is part of a recent trend on the Court - a trend away from rigid sentencing rules and toward giving back to judges some discretion to impose sentences that track the facts of a particular case," says CBS News senior legal analyst Andrew Cohen. "Lower court judges have pushed hard for that wiggle room and the Court once again has obliged."

Kimbrough's case did not present the justices with the ultimate question of the fairness of the disparity in crack and powder cocaine sentences.

Judges will have more discretion in an estimated 30 percent of future crack prosecutions, adds Andrews. But the sentencing laws don't change. The basic 100-1 disparity still exists and only Congress can change that.

Seventy percent of crack defendants are given the mandatory prison terms.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said, "A reviewing court could not rationally conclude that it was an abuse of discretion" to cut four years off the guidelines-recommended sentence for Kimbrough.

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.

"Whatever else it does, the ruling does not do away with that enormous discrepancy in sentences for people caught with powder cocaine versus those caught with crack cocaine," says Cohen. "If that's going to happen, it's going to have to happen in Congress, which created the different sentence maximums in the first place, or through the Sentencing Commission, which already is moving in that direction."

The Sentencing Commission recently changed the guidelines to reduce the disparity in prison time for the two crimes. New guidelines took effect Nov. 1 after Congress took no action to overturn the change.

The commission is scheduled to vote Tuesday afternoon on the retroactive application of the crack cocaine guideline amendment that went into effect on Nov. 1. The commission has estimated 19,500 inmates could apply for sentence reductions under the proposal.

In the other case, the court, also by a 7-2 vote, upheld a sentence of probation for Brian Gall for his role in a conspiracy to sell 10,000 pills of ecstasy. U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt of Des Moines, Iowa, determined that Gall had voluntarily quit selling drugs several years before he was implicated, stopped drinking, graduated from college and built a successful business. The guidelines said Gall should have been sent to prison for 30 to 37 months.

The sentence was reasonable, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his majority opinion. Alito and Thomas again dissented.

Under the decisions in both cases, Alito said, "Sentencing disparities will gradually increase."

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, David Souter, Ginsburg and Stevens formed the majority in both cases.

The cases are Kimbrough v. U.S., 06-6330, and Gall v. U.S., 06-7949.

[doppel-]

How is it coddling blacks to have parity in sentencing guidelines for similar amounts of similar drugs?

[culturechang]

Sentencing guidelines sure seemed like a good idea in the early 90s to ease the disparity in sentencing, although you would never know it because I still noticed widely differing sentences for the same crimes. So I guess now we are steering away from the sentencing guidelines now. The sensationalism over drugs from the 60s, 70s, and 80s is slowly wearing off....only to give way to sensationalism over other issues. Congress now wants to make prostitution a federal crime with an amendment to the reauthorization of the Human trafficking law. All part of that "modern day slavery" lie. Simple operation of a brothel with consenting adults will get you 10 years anywhere in the US. The popular percieved definition of trafficking doesn''t figure into that, but the legal definition will include it. Hard to believe what''s legal in Nevada by popular vote could be federal crime worthy of 10 years. House of Reps has already passed it. Once we get passed the sensationalism over ***, we will have to reverse all these laws in the future....after a lot of poeple serve hard time for no reason. Why do we always have to learn the hard way?

[mcvet]

How is it coddling blacks to have parity in sentencing guidelines for similar amounts of similar drugs?





Posted by doppel- at 11:10 AM : Dec 10, 2007
+ report abuse

You are so right! These NeoCon''s are turning out to be MORE racist than the McCarthy bunch! I guess they aren''t going to be happy until we have EVERYONE locked up in the Black Community. The whole "War on Drugs" is an absolute and complete failure. Giving ONE kind of Coke a MUCH different sentence was done for ONE reason and one only. Upper Middle Class whites use the power and they do NOT want those guys going to jail. LOL

[cbd2]

No criminals should be ''coddled'' - black or white. But the disparity is two-fold: different sentencing guidelines for the same drug which results in disparity of racial sentencing as the courts are now legally recognizing what we have known for years - crack cocaine is used predominately by blacks and powder cocaine by whites.

To be honest I am of the opinion that the sentencing guidelines for powder should be RAISED to those for crack - the more rich white punks that go to prison for a ''party'' drug, all the better.

[navymom1147]

All cocaine users, whether they are black, white, rich, poor, yellow, green, whatever, should get the same sentence handed them. There should be no color and no favoritism for drug users.

[navymom1147]

Cocaine and crack users should all have the same sentence handed them. Race should never enter into this. Let''s don''t coddle the upper middle class for using powder and punish the poor lower class for using crack. It''s all the same drug. What kind of message are we sending our young people when we let the "powder" users off with a lighter sentence? They''ll just find a way to get the money to buy the powder. But if they''re black, do you think they''ll be treated fairly? Not in this lifetime, but hopefully in my grandchildren''s lifetimes.

[Krazcarl]

Crack is worse ask anyone that is familier with the drugs it''s cheaper more addictive you can justify 5 dollar rocks verses 100 dolars a gram. The only thing they have in common is they come from Columbia.

[dollbaby426]

Bravo, at last someone is listening and willing to act on it. for the past 30 years young black males being railroaded to prison hand over fist for selling crack cocaine, while white boys with the powder, get slapped on the wrist.

Bravo!!!!

[kennergirl]

Why spend the money sending anyone to jail for 15 or 20 years for drug possession anyway? Do they think that taking them out of society and putting them into a jail cell would actually help them? I think they should be shipped to a rehabilitation center for a year or so whatever it takes. Addiction is an illness and needs to be treated as such. Taxpayers spend so much on prisons why not spend the money on rehabilitation and training so these people can become productive members of society. I bet with the right program a lot of these people serving enormous sentences for drug offenses would straighten up their lives. Sending them off to prison hasn''t worked yet.

[dollbaby426]

kennergirl,

Dang!!! how''d you get so smart.

My sentiments exactly!!!

You know the extreme sentencing for Afican Americans was just another of many tactics to continue to attempt to destroy the black family..

In addition to Felony = no vote!!!

[culturechang]

Now dont go making sense now. You''ll get govt all confused.

Jail is no longer about rehabilitation. The system is more into taking a one-time criminal and making sure they have no choice but be a lifetime criminal....so we can then argue that he/she cannot be rehabilitated.

[thgdriver]

I forbid crack in my house thats why I do all my own plumbing.

[sgtrds]

How is it coddling blacks to have parity in sentencing guidelines for similar amounts of similar drugs?

Posted by doppel- at 11:10 AM : Dec 10, 2007

Absolutely! Why should anyone who uses crack have to go to jail for any longer then Bush would have if he''d been busted for all of the Coke he snorted?

[netscaper113]

Why is there separate sentencing guidelines for crack and powder cocaine if they''re the same drug?

Abuse of both should be punished the same- with lengthy jail sentences and drug treatment.

I just wonder if those who complain that drug sentences are "too harsh" have ever had to deal with unrepentant drug addicts in their neighborhood or in their own apartment building. People who are continually high, whether on crack or powder or pot or PCP or meth, should not be allowed to harass and threaten society. They are menaces (to put it mildly) to society, and should be removed from society until they have served time and no longer have the need or desire to abuse drugs.

[beehive21-2009]

Crack or powder,speed ,pills,all that BS leads to you becoming a Zombie,give it up,fool.Unless of course being a Zombie is your thing.The Court needs to put all sentencing back in the state courts hands,whatever happened to states rights?it time to rein in the feds ?

[toolmangler-2009]

Bravo, at last someone is listening and willing to act on it. for the past 30 years young black males being railroaded to prison hand over fist for selling crack cocaine, while white boys with the powder, get slapped on the wrist.
Bravo!!!!
Posted by dollbaby426 at 01:54 PM : Dec 10, 2007


If I saw one group doing the same thing I was but only getting small sentences because they used green eggs instead of brown like I was using, I think I would switch to ''green eggs''. (are you smarter than a 5th grader?)

[toolmangler-2009]

I think anybody that messes with ''illegal'' drugs deserves what they get.

[toolmangler-2009]

If you can''t do the ''time'', don''t do the crime.

[adra_]

Dollbaby426,
You are racist, and destroying this country. Please respond if you have any questions, I will be glad to entertain them.

[runningralph]

Blacks aren''t the only ones who use use crack. I know personally two white women who are crackheads. Both are also addicted to black men and welfare. Both at one time were working taxpayers married to white men. If I know two, I figure everybody knows two. Families scattered and destroyed.
I don''t know if crack is better or worse than powder cocaine, meth, smack or whatever. Sentencing should be same for all of it. I predict when they turn all the currently locked up crack dealers out, they will go directly back to the same black neighborhoods and wreak a lot of havoc. Then we will hear an outcry for the taxpayers fork over a bunch of money.

[azmka]

The drug war is unwinnable!
Locking people up for non-violent drug crimes is not only a complete waste of our money it also turns otherwise normal people into real criminals.
How long will it take people to realize that where there is demand there will always be a supplier, bottom line!
Cigarettes and alcohol are legal. That does not mean everyone will abuse or even use them. Some do and will but that will never change.

[toolmangler-2009]

Cigarettes and alcohol are legal. That does not mean everyone will abuse or even use them. Some do and will but that will never change.
Posted by azmka at 04:17 PM : Dec 10, 2007



I have never seen anybody steal every penny his family had and sell the childs Christmas bike 3 days after christmas to support his ''smoking'' habit the way I saw it happen to support a Crack habit.

[missingamerica]

The "war on drugs" is so foolish as to be silly.

[juliaholtzen]

I think it is ridiculous that there is a different sentence for two different forms of the same drug. If it is the same thing it should be senteced the same way. Personally I believe if you are messing with illegal drugs you deserve to be punished and put through rehab. I just don''t get why people do all that ***, since it is so bad for your health in the first place. Not to mention it ALWAYS ruins your life one way or another.

[yongamerica]

I guess the original law wasn''t all that it was cracked up to be.

[yongamerica]

juliaholtzen: powder cocaine and crack is to a cigarette and a nicotine patch. The same but with different effects all together.
Tobacco should be outlawed with cocaine, it is far more addictive and hospitalizes and kills more americans than any thing else.

[Krazcarl]

You folks have no idea of the difference between crack and coke and are filling this blog with your stupidity period...

[nggr]

I think anybody that messes with ''''illegal'''' drugs deserves what they get.

Posted by ToolMangler at 03:12 PM : Dec 10, 2007

EVEN RUSH?

NOOOOOOO!

[rheola-2009]

Any person who takes mind altering drugs, in any form, surely has to be extraordinarily weak and feeble minded, totally lacking in self respect, and certainly not fit to be a member of society.

Nobody made them do it, it was and is solely a decision of their own sick minds.

[nggr]

You folks have no idea of the difference between crack and coke and are filling this blog with your stupidity period...

Posted by crzmeat at 06:48 PM : Dec 10, 2007

look. its easy,
you snort coke after your morning coffee and pop-tart,
go to work, then smoke crack before your dinner.

coke in the morning, crack at night.

[nggr]

Posted by rheola at 06:54 PM : Dec 10, 2007

all us junkies are in awe of your obvious superiority.

its all too apparent that you could have written and recorded the White Album on your lunch break.

ALL HAIL RHEOLA.

AIR-RHEOLA , get it?
BWAHAHAHAHA!

[nggr]

Any person who takes mind altering drugs, in any form, surely has to be extraordinarily weak and feeble minded, totally lacking in self respect, and certainly not fit to be a member of society.
Nobody made them do it, it was and is solely a decision of their own sick minds.

Posted by rheola at 06:54 PM : Dec 10, 2007

I know your not talkin about Rush.
he''s the man.
I love how he incites hatred in our country.
its awesome, and he gets plastered.

btw-
you or someone you love has never been drunk before?
holy moley!

[rheola-2009]

nggr

whether I am a hyporcrite or not is imaterial

Whether I have in past been one of those I described in my post is also imatterial.

However surely in general what I said is true.

What does a junkie constructively contribute to society.

[excoachken]

This Supreme Court FINALLY got one right, but not because they thought it was unfair to a minority or the poor. They just know the cost of incarceration and this is their best economic solution.

[robertkjjj]

I have better sentencing deadlines that will stop crack dealing in it''s tracks.
Punishment for Selling 10 grams of Crack:
White male defendant: 30 days, plus no TV for 60 more days
Hot white woman: Free cosmos for a month + $1000 GC for Victoria''s Secret
Black defendant: Life in Prison.

Do all this, and ya got your crack problem solved.

[inbredwhty]

They changed the laws because too many of us white folks are getting caught and locked up...otherwise, who''d really care!

[downtowner97]

Medicine is worse than drugs anyway. Look at Vioxx and all the other prescription drugs that turned out to have horrible side effects. Crack has been thoroughly tested and proven to cause mayoral election wins in DC.

[sgtrds]

This Supreme Court FINALLY got one right, but not because they thought it was unfair to a minority or the poor. They just know the cost of incarceration and this is their best economic solution.

Posted by exCoachKen at 07:36 PM : Dec 10, 2007

I agree. Locking people up for non-violent drug offenses is ridiculous. Drug abuse is a public health issue, not a criminal law one. Sentences for hardcore drug use should be to treatment centers, not prisons where drugs are just as easy to get as on the streets.

[yogiaintavg]

FYI-most drug dealers are selling for the money. Your "big time" drug dealers are not users. Drug dealers have a saying, "I can''t make money if I use up the product!" Although dealing drugs is not directly a violent crime. Violence is associated with the drug dealing lifestyle (i.e. guns, people being murdered over territory, robberies for drugs or money to get drugs).

[firststate]

rheola

I couldn''t agree more that george w bush is "extraordinarily weak and feeble minded, totally lacking in self respect, and certainly not fit to be a member of society." It was courageous of you to make the statement about all drug users, including him. If only more people felt as you do, he''d have never been elected. It points to the diminishing morality in America that a drug user was elected to that office. His drug use could explain his delusional nature. Remember the public service ads with an egg in a frying pan representing a brain on drugs, apparently in bush''s case the brain damage was irreversible.

[rheola-2009]

couldn''''t agree more that george w bush is "extraordinarily weak and feeble minded, totally lacking in self respect, and certainly not fit to be a member of society."

Posted by firststate at 10:02 PM : Dec 10, 2007


Not really what I said, however I shall go along with it.

[Krazcarl]

Crack is trash anyone who has smoketed more than one joint knows that,,,

[rowdytexan2]

Medicine is worse than drugs anyway. Look at Vioxx and all the other prescription drugs that turned out to have horrible side effects. Crack has been thoroughly tested and proven to cause mayoral election wins in DC.
------------------------------------------------------Posted by downtowner97 at 08:15 PM : Dec 10, 2007

...presidential, too. lol

[sandzz-2009]

''I agree. Locking people up for non-violent drug offenses is ridiculous. Drug abuse is a public health issue, not a criminal law one. Sentences for hardcore drug use should be to treatment centers, not prisons where drugs are just as easy to get as on the streets.

Posted by SgtRDS''

I wonder if you would share the same sentiment if the crackheads were to move in next door. Then they could tell you that moving them away from your kids is not a criminal issue but a health concern that is already being addressed by them signing up for rehab for the fiftieth time. Of course to you it is irrelevant that these people would literally kill for a $5 rock but meh, health concern. Maybe next time they''ll get your kids. Some folks are better off away from society, the hardcore users are just those folks...

[brianbwb-2009]

Not disparaging his statement, but what exactly did he mean by ''''would-be black man''''?
Posted by TheGateway1

Probably since a male youth is a "would be man", as a "Black" youth, he was a "would be "Black" man.

A bit verbose, but perfectly understandable...

[keithle1]

You would need a lot of treatment centers but that''s better off than putting them in prison. You have to be 100% sure that they have kicked the habit before they''re allowed to leave the treatment center. Prison is where the big-time drug dealers should be as well as the murderers, rapists, kidnappers, child molesters, etc.

We''re never going to legalize drugs like cocaine & heroin. I don''t see that happening any time soon. Can you imagine politicians voting for that?

[cepe10-2009]

Alito really is an idiot. The sentencing disparity is already there. There is no legitimate reason for their to be any difference in punishment for possession of cocaine and it''s derivatives in the different forms. Again he is looking out for his own - the elite.

[Krazcarl]

What is the matter with you people crack is trash ask anyone that has got off it if they were lucy enough. The dealers should be killed were not talking weed were talking the most dangerous drug out there and it totaly corrupts our society.Aslap on the wrist will do no good.

[larrycodd]

Hey, with more crack-heads out of jail, Democrats might get more votes.