Pubdate: Fri, 31 Jan 2014
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2014 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/IuiAC7IZ
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author: Timothy M. Phelps, Tribune Washington Bureau

BILL ADVANCES TO CUT MANDATORY DRUG SENTENCES

WASHINGTON - Most mandatory drug sentences would be cut in half under 
a bipartisan bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on 
Thursday, another victory in the campaign to roll back decades old 
laws that require lengthy prison terms for drug offenders and, 
according to critics, fall heaviest on minorities.

The committee voted 13-5 to change most mandatory minimum prison 
terms from five, 10 or 20 years to two, five or 10 years and to make 
retroactive a 2010 law that reduced the sentences for possession of 
crack cocaine compared with powder cocaine. Mandatory minimum 
sentences are applied in about 15,000 drug sentences a year.

"Today's vote is a major step in what could be an historic shift in 
the decades long war on drugs," said Marc Mauer, executive director 
of The Sentencing Project, a Washington nonprofit.

The most notable change in the political equation was the support of 
some prominent Republicans, notably Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, Sen. Ted 
Cruz of Texas and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, making it highly likely 
that the bill will clear the full Senate.

The Republican shift appears to involve libertarians, some tea party 
conservatives worried about the high costs of incarceration and 
members of the Christian right. But the committee's top Republican, 
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, had a strong warning about the changes.

"Heroin addiction is spreading in areas that have never seen the 
problem before," Grassley said. "Given the real world that we live 
in, why should we vote to cut mandatory minimum sentences?"

Some federal judges have complained for years about having their 
hands tied in drug cases and being forced to sentence people they 
regard as minor offenders to lengthy prison terms.

The bill would also provide a path to freedom for an estimated 7,000 
imprisoned crack users or dealers sentenced before the Fair 
Sentencing Act was approved four years ago. That law corrected 
disparities between possession of crack cocaine and similar amounts 
of powder cocaine.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom