Pubdate: Wed, 12 Dec 2007
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles Times
Page: Front Page
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Richard B. Schmitt, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Cited: Families Against Mandatory Minimums http://www.famm.org
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?244 (Sentencing - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Sentencing+Commission
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/crack+cocaine

RULING COULD FREE 2,500 DRUG INMATES

A Federal Sentencing Panel Reduces Penalties in Crack Cocaine Cases. 
One Member Says It's A Matter of Fairness.

WASHINGTON -- More than 2,500 federal inmates became eligible for 
early release from prison starting in March after the U.S. Sentencing 
Commission voted Tuesday to retroactively reduce the penalties for 
using and selling crack cocaine.

Despite Justice Department warnings against releasing thousands of 
criminals, the commission voted unanimously to allow inmates to seek 
reduced sentences if they were convicted under tough drug laws passed 
in the 1980s. Those laws have come under criticism from civil 
libertarians and many judges, who say crack cocaine offenders are 
treated more harshly than users of powder, which has resulted in 
stiffer penalties for African Americans.

Tuesday's vote, which ultimately could affect some 19,500 federal 
prisoners serving time for crack convictions, came a day after the 
U.S. Supreme Court ruled that judges may deviate from the strict 
sentencing guidelines developed during the "war on drugs." The two 
decisions amount to a repudiation of federal law enforcement policies 
and a return of power to judges in dispensing justice to defendants 
in federal courts.

The reprieve would be unprecedented: No other single rule in the 
two-decade history of the Sentencing Commission has potentially 
affected so many inmates.

The numbers, which amount to 10% of all federal prisoners, dwarf even 
the grants of presidential clemency afforded draft resisters and 
conscientious objectors after the Vietnam War.

Those eligible for reduced sentences include 307 inmates sentenced in 
federal courts in California, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the 
U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. Mrozek said 124 of them were 
sentenced in the seven-county federal judicial district surrounding 
Los Angeles.

The bulk of inmates eligible for the sentencing break are 
concentrated in the South, mainly Virginia, Florida and South Carolina.

Earlier this year, the commission adopted more lenient rules for 
crack offenders sentenced after Nov. 1. Tuesday's vote gave federal 
inmates the benefit of the new regime.

More than 2,500 of them -- mainly those who have already served 
lengthy sentences -- would be eligible for release in the first year. 
About 17,000 others also would be eligible for sentence reductions, 
but even if they were granted, the inmates would still have time left to serve.

Members of the commission said the move was an important first step 
to correct what they said was a major injustice that Congress had 
failed to address.

"Our country has moved in the wrong direction with regard to the 
so-called war on drugs," Ruben Castillo, a federal judge in Chicago 
and a vice chairman of the commission, said before the vote Tuesday. 
"We need to refocus this war."

Michael E. Horowitz, a former Justice Department official and another 
member of the commission, said: "This is not a get-out-of-jail-free 
card by any means, but a fairness issue."

The far-greater punishment for crack users has been long debated. 
Under federal law, an individual convicted of dealing 5 grams of 
crack cocaine, even a first-time offender, is automatically sentenced 
to five years in prison. A similar sentence in a powder cocaine case 
must involve at least 500 grams. Lawmakers in the 1980s justified the 
disparity because crack was associated with violent crime and was 
considered more addictive.

The changes that the commission adopted Tuesday do not affect the 
prison terms of inmates given those "mandatory minimum" sentences, 
only those who received higher sentences under the guidelines. The 
net effect would drop the average sentence by about 27 months or about 17%.

The early release had been strongly opposed by law enforcement organizations.

"These offenders are among the most serious and violent offenders in 
the federal system," the Justice Department said in a statement.

With violent crime rising after two decades of steady decline, 
"releasing a potential 20,000 additional violent criminals onto the 
street prematurely is going to exacerbate the problem," said James 
Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, which 
represents thousands of police officers across the country.

The Justice Department added that the decision would also "divert 
valuable resources from federal courts and prosecutors for 
re-sentencing at a time when violent crime is rising in many 
vulnerable communities around the country."

The commission said it attempted to address such concerns. It delayed 
until March 3 the date upon which courts could begin entertaining 
sentence-reduction motions in individual cases. The hope is that 
judges, probation officers, prison officials and public defenders 
would devise a system to handle the influx in an orderly fashion.

Individual judges took issue Tuesday with the suggestion that the 
decision would lead to the release of numerous dangerous criminals. 
Judges are to consider a variety of factors, including whether an 
inmate had a history of run-ins with the law.

That criticism "presupposes that federal judges are going to be 
irresponsible," said Reggie B. Walton, a U.S. district judge in 
Washington who testified before the commission last month on behalf 
of the policymaking arm of the federal judiciary. Judges are not 
going to "willy nilly release people back into the community" where 
the evidence shows they pose a danger, Walton said in an interview Tuesday.

Meeting in a federal building named for the late Supreme Court 
Justice Thurgood Marshall, the dramatic vote drew applause and tears 
from an audience that included family members and supporters of a 
number of federal inmates -- as well as representatives from advocacy 
groups who had been lobbying for changes in the crack law for years.

One of them, Karen Garrison, has two sons imprisoned on crack 
charges. They stand to have three or four years shaved off their 
sentences, assuming judges in their cases approve.

"I was just thinking, 'I hope they don't change their minds,' " she 
said after the vote. "It was great to hear that [the commissioners] 
are willing to share the responsibility for getting our African 
American brothers back on the street."

There are several bills in Congress that would make treatment of 
defendants in crack cases more like those in powder cocaine cases. 
The legislation has bipartisan support, although lawmakers have not 
been inclined to take any action that might be seen as soft on crime.

Some sentencing-reform advocates said the vote of the congressionally 
chartered commission might send a powerful message to Congress that 
the time had come to act.

"The surprise was that it was unanimous," said Julie Stewart, 
president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a Washington group 
that lobbies for federal sentencing reform. "That sends a real strong 
message to Congress that the commission has conviction and believes 
that crack cocaine penalties are too stiff."

About 85% of the offenders sentenced across all federal judicial 
districts are African American. They include former Kansas City 
Royals slugger Willie Mays Aikens, who was sentenced to 20 years in 
federal prison in 1994 for selling crack to an undercover cop. He 
would have gotten no more than 27 months if his offense had involved 
powder cocaine. Aikens could be released in 2009, about three years 
earlier than planned.

Also Tuesday, President Bush announced that he was commuting the 
sentence of Michael Dewayne Short of Hyattsville, Md., who had been 
convicted of aiding and abetting a crack cocaine ring and sentenced 
to 19 years, 7 months in prison in 1992. Short, 36, was scheduled to 
be released in April 2009. Under Bush's order, he will be released in 
February. It was the fifth commutation of a sentence Bush has 
granted, and the first in a crack cocaine case.
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