Pubdate: Thu, 12 Jan 2006
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.wsj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487
Author: Gary Fields, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

JUDGES SHOW MORE LENIENCY ON CRACK COCAINE

WASHINGTON -- In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision a year ago 
making sentencing guidelines advisory rather than requirements to be 
followed, some federal judges appear to be giving more lenient 
sentences in cases involving crack cocaine, according to an analysis 
released yesterday.

The study by the Sentencing Project, a Washington research and 
advocacy group for criminal-justice policy, may reinvigorate the 
debate about the racial disparity in sentences for crack-cocaine 
defendants, who are primarily minorities, and powder-cocaine 
defendants, who are more likely to be white and more affluent.

The study examined 24 crack-cocaine cases in which judges explicitly 
discussed the reasoning behind their sentencing decisions in the 
context of the 2005 Supreme Court ruling that allowed them to use the 
sentencing guidelines as advisory rather than as requirements.

In 21 of the 24 cases, the judges sentenced defendants to less time 
than they likely could have received under the sentencing guidelines. 
Under the guidelines, for instance, a person who possesses five grams 
of crack cocaine will get the same sentence as someone who sells 500 
grams of powder cocaine -- although there is little physiological 
difference in the two.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, said he intended to 
introduce a bill this year that will propose changing the law to 
reduce the disparity between the amounts of crack cocaine and powder 
cocaine necessary to give a defendant the same sentence. He and Utah 
Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch co-authored a bill in 2003 that would 
have reduced the disparity to 20-to-1 -- from 100-to-1 -- but it got 
little support.

"I still believe the guidelines are not appropriate on crack and 
powder cocaine," said Sen. Sessions. "I think we need to make some 
improvements there based on the reality of what's going on in the 
courts of America. This study does seem to indicate that judges would 
tend more to the 20-to-one ratio rather than 100-to-one."

The Sentencing Commission, which declined to comment on the study, 
has long supported altering its guidelines on crack-cocaine crimes to 
bring the penalties and amounts more in line with powder cocaine. In 
1995, the Sentencing Commission sent Congress an amendment which 
would have equalized the penalties on the two forms of cocaine, but 
Congress rejected the amendment. Similar recommendations from the 
commission in 1997 and 2002 were ignored by Congress.

At least two of the cases highlighted in the study have been 
overturned by appeals courts in the past week. In one case, Rhode 
Island Chief District Court Judge Ernest Torres sentenced a 
crack-cocaine defendant to just over five years in prison, although 
the sentencing guidelines called for him to be sentenced to between 
seven and 12 years.

In handing down the sentence, the judge wrote that the 100-to-1 ratio 
was "excessive" and "not reasonable." However, a three-judge panel on 
the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled last week that Mr. 
Torres had erred in handing down the sentence.

"Laboring in uncharted waters, the lower court jettisoned the 
guidelines and constructed a new sentencing range," the appeals court wrote. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake