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COURT RESTORES SOME SANITY TO CRACK SENTENCES

The U.S.  Supreme Court has taken what should have been an obvious step toward more sensible sentencing -- though apparently it hasn't been obvious enough for Congress to fix the mistake it made some two decades ago.  The result is a modest step toward equity in sentencing practices.  Some two decades ago, in 1986, following the tragic cocaine-related death of basketball star Len Bias and in the midst of a panic about a crack "epidemic," Congress amended sentencing "guidelines" to increase the penalties for crack cocaine as compared to the powder version.  Possession of 50 grams of crack has long carried the same penalty as possession of 5,000 grams of powder cocaine.

Over the years numerous studies have documented that while African-Americans and white people use cocaine at about the same rate as a percentage of the general population, African-Americans are more likely to use the cooked crack type, while white people tended to use the powder.  On top of the fact that black people tend to be arrested in disproportionate numbers for drug possession, then, they ended up serving grotesquely long sentences for having the more demonized version of cocaine.

The U.S.  Sentencing Commission, along with most judges, has been aware of this disparity for some time.  Recently it amended its sentencing guidelines to reduce the crack/powder disparity, though not by much.  This week, it decided to apply its decision retroactively, meaning some 19,000 people serving absurdly long sentences will be eligible to appeal their sentences.  The Supreme Court contributed to returning some common sense to sentencing by overturning two appellate court decisions that had overturned two sentences imposed by trial judges.

In one case, a judge in Virginia sentenced a Gulf War veteran who possessed 56 grams of crack to 15 years instead of the 19-23 years the guidelines dictated.  In another, an Iowa man who had given up selling and using drugs and gotten a college education long before the police got the evidence to convict him for his previous drug selling got a suspended sentence instead of 30 to 37 years.

By a 7-2 margin ( Justices Alito and Thomas dissenting ), the high court ruled that the trial judges in these cases exercised permissible discretion in sentencing.

The Supreme Court and Sentencing Commission have set the stage for a modest reduction of the inequity inherent in the crack/powder sentencing disparity.  However, Congress really should act to eliminate it altogether -- or to end the ridiculous war on drugs that has created so much more misery.