Pubdate: Thu, 06 Mar 2008
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2008 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Debra J. Saunders
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

DRUG LAWS' ABSENCE OF JUSTICE

When Attorney General Michael Mukasey was working to  persuade 
Congress to stop a U.S. Sentencing Commission  decision to allow 
federal judges to reduce the  sentences of some 19,500 federal 
inmates serving time  for crack cocaine offenses, he told the 
Fraternal Order of Police that federal crack offenders "are some of 
the  most serious and violent offenders in the federal  system."

Drug lords, rejoice. If your average crack offender  represents the 
most dangerous convicts in the federal  system, then a lot of 
small-time hoods and mid-level  lackeys who don't pack heat are 
warming prison beds  that should be meant for kingpins and their 
armed henchmen.

You've probably read about the disparity in federal  mandatory 
minimum sentences before. The Anti-Drug Abuse  Act of 1986 mandated a 
five-year minimum sentence for  possession of five grams of crack 
cocaine or 500 grams  of powdered cocaine. Civil rights groups have 
attacked  the 100-1 volume disparity on racial grounds. The U.S. 
Sentencing Commission found that more than 80 percent  of crack 
offenders are black, while some 80 percent of  powdered cocaine 
offenders are white.

Over the years, the sentencing commission has  recommended narrowing 
the crack-powder gap. In May, the  commission also called for a 
repeal of mandatory  minimum sentences for simple possession of 
cocaine in either form, in the belief that federal law 
enforcement  should concentrate on big-volume dealers. Congress 
has  failed to act.

Last year the sentencing commission made a modest  reduction in crack 
sentences and also allowed inmates  to petition for reduced sentences 
starting March 3.  Because Congress did not stop the change, more 
than 1,500 inmates are eligible to apply this year. The  average 
sentence reduction, according to the  commission, is expected to be 27 months.

If this rule change meant that violent career criminals  would be 
running wild and free, I'd be leading the  charge in protest. It's 
true, federal statistics show  that 27 percent of powder and 43 
percent of crack  offenses in 2005 were broadly defined as involving 
weapons - but that definition can apply to "any  participant" of a 
deal in which someone else has a  knife or a gun. When the commission 
looked for crimes  that involved injury, death, or threats of injury 
or  death, it found that 90 percent of crack offenses "did  not have 
violence associated with them." So if these  are the most violent 
offenders, as Mukasey says, the  feds are going after sissies.

What is more, the commission found in 2002 that that  largest portion 
of crack offenders - 55 percent - were  street-level dealers, while 
the largest group of  powder cocaine offenders - 33 percent - were 
couriers  and mules. I'm not saying they shouldn't go to prison,  but 
that the feds should focus on putting dangerous  criminals behind 
bars, not these losers.

Eric Sterling, who as a congressional staffer helped  write the 
draconian 1986 drug-abuse law and later  started the Criminal Justice 
Policy Foundation as  penance, noted that the downside to critics 
focusing on  the crack-powder disparity as a "civil 
rights  complaint" is that they neglect the larger problem -  cocaine 
prosecutions too often target small-time  criminals when "the feds 
should be going after  high-level people, the multikilo multiton 
traffickers"  - the thugs who have private armies, launder barrels 
of  money and generally endanger all of society.

As a former federal judge, Mukasey should have more  faith in his 
erstwhile brethren. As Sterling noted,  "Judges aren't going to just 
let dangerous people out"  - not when they can turn down petitions 
filed by the  rare drug lord who comes before their bench.

"What passes for a drug kingpin in 99 percent of the  cases is 
nothing more than a young man who can't even  afford a lawyer when 
he's hauled into court," a  frustrated U.S. District Court Judge 
Patrick Murphy of East St. Louis told "60 Minutes" in 2004. "I've 
seen  very few drug kings."
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