Pubdate: Tue, 24 Nov 2009
Source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune (MN)
Copyright: 2009 Star Tribune
Contact: http://www.startribunecompany.com/143
Website: http://www.startribune.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/266
Author: Pamela Alexander and Julie Stewart
Note: Pamela Alexander, a former Hennepin County district judge, is 
president of the Council on Crime and Justice. Julie Stewart is 
president and founder of Families Against Mandatory Minimums.
Referenced: The Fair Sentencing Act of 2009 http://drugsense.org/url/rBKMxwHJ
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/find?258 (Holder, Eric)

COCAINE SENTENCING DISPARITY MUST END

Attorney General Eric Holder Is Right to Put This at the Top of His 
Reform List.

We hope Congress was listening Wednesday when the nation's top 
prosecutor, Attorney General Eric Holder, told the Senate: "There are 
few areas of the law that cry out for reform more than federal 
cocaine sentencing policy."

Pending legislation in both houses of Congress would eliminate the 
so-called "100-to-1" ratio between crack and powder cocaine. That 
ratio means that offenders get a five-year mandatory minimum prison 
sentence for a crime involving 5 grams of crack -- but that it takes 
a hundred times that amount (500 grams) of powder cocaine to trigger 
the same prison term. Fifty grams of crack -- or 5,000 grams of 
powder cocaine -- garners a 10-year mandatory minimum.

Holder is right to put cocaine at the top of his reform list: No 
criminal-sentencing laws are more unjust and indefensible than those 
for federal crack-cocaine crimes. And for years, bipartisan support 
has been building to reform these laws. Republicans, Democrats, the 
Department of Justice, judges, the public, criminal-justice experts 
and the U.S. Sentencing Commission agree that the sentencing 
disparity isn't just unfair, it's also a nasty smear on the justice system.

The impact of that disparity falls heavily on African-Americans, who 
comprise 80 percent of those serving federal sentences for crack 
cocaine. Their sentences are almost 10 years on average, even though 
a typical crack-cocaine case involves just 52 grams -- the size of a 
candy bar -- and the defendants are overwhelmingly nonviolent and 
low-level. A conviction for 52 grams of powder cocaine would generate 
a prison sentence of less than two years.

An alarming byproduct of this kind of racial disparity is community 
distrust of the criminal-justice system. Police and judges confirm 
that citizens won't report crack crimes or serve on juries or even 
convict in crack cases because they know the defendants will be 
subject to unequal and discriminatory sentences.

Despite all of this, Congress has been painfully slow to act. It 
should take a lesson from Minnesota's sentencing law and pass the 
Fair Sentencing Act of 2009, a bill that would eliminate the 
sentencing difference between crack and powder cocaine. (Minnesota 
law makes no distinction.)

Public safety has a price -- one that, for the most part, we are 
willing to pay. But when a bad sentencing policy locks up the wrong 
people for too long, alienates the public, and frustrates prosecutors 
and defense attorneys alike, it's time to take a hard second look and 
make some adjustments. In Holder's words, "the stakes are simply too 
high to let reform in this area wait any longer."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake