Pubdate: Sun, 08 Aug 2010
Source: Charlotte Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2010 The Charlotte Observer
Contact: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/newsroom/index.html?action=letters
Website: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/78
Author: Gary L. Wright

LAW CLOSES THE GAP IN COCAINE SENTENCING

New Legislation Reduces Disparity But Will Not Help Those In Prison For
Crack Offenses.

Congress' passage of a bill reducing the disparity in sentences for
crack and powder cocaine will save millions of dollars to house
inmates in federal prisons, but it won't help the thousands of
criminals now imprisoned for crack offenses.

The bill, signed by President Barack Obama last week, isn't
retroactive, experts say.

Congress changed the 25-year-old law that exposed thousands of
African-Americans to long prison terms for crack cocaine convictions
while handing out far more lenient sentences to those, mostly whites,
caught with more expensive powder cocaine. The new law reduces the
disparity in the amounts of each drug required for the imposition of
mandatory minimum sentences. It also eliminates the mandatory minimum
sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine.

"While our drug laws should be tough, they should also be fair," U.S.
Attorney Anne Tompkins told the Observer. "I fully support this
change. The law...will re-focus federal prosecutions on high-level
drug trafficking organizations."

U.S. District Judge Graham Mullen also praised the new legislation.
The federal judge in Charlotte has complained for years the nation's
drug laws have a disparate impact on black defendants. Under the old
law, a person convicted of possessing crack got the same mandatory
sentence as someone convicted for having 100 times more powder cocaine.

"I think the change is long overdue," Mullen told the Observer. "Crack
cocaine was never one hundred times more dangerous than powder
cocaine. It's all dangerous.

"If the crack cocaine law was subject to the kind of civil rights
analysis that many other laws have been, the disparate impact on
blacks would have made it unconstitutional."

The 1986 law was enacted during a time when crack cocaine use was
rampant and linked to growing violence. It required that defendants
caught with just five grams of crack serve a five-year mandatory
minimum prison sentence - the same sentence required for a defendant
caught with 500 grams of powder cocaine.

The new legislation still treats crack defendants more harshly, but
reduces the disparity in the amount of drugs required to trigger the
mandatory minimum to about 18 to 1.

A defendant caught with 28 grams, or an ounce, of crack now faces the
five-year prison term.

About 80 percent of those convicted of crack cocaine offenses are
black.

The new law is expected to save the government $42 million over five
years because of reduced prison populations, according to the
Congressional Budget Office.

Claire Rauscher, who heads the federal public defender's office in
Charlotte and for Western North Carolina, called Congress' decision to
change the law "heartening."

"The disparity in ... punishments was unfair," she said.
"Unfortunately, the new law isn't retroactive, so there are thousands
of inmates nationwide who can't benefit from the changes in the law."

Mullen in 2006 called the nation's drug laws draconian.

"I'm tired of sentencing young black men to prison...," he told the
Observer at the time. "I've sent too many black men to prison for 20
or 30 years or life. As a judge, I had no power to do anything other
than what was called for in the sentencing guidelines."

Many federal inmates convicted of crack cocaine offenses have gotten
some relief in recent years. A 2008 amendment to the drug sentencing
guidelines allowed them to apply for sentence reductions.

Nearly 16,000 federal prisoners across the country - mostly blacks -
have had their crack cocaine sentences reduced, according to a U.S.
Sentencing Commission report issued last month. More than 1,000 of
them had been sentenced in North Carolina. Nationwide, their sentences
were cut an average of about two years.

In all, 24,209 federal prisoners - including 2,082 in North Carolina -
have applied to have their crack cocaine sentences reduced.

So far, judges reduced the sentences for 15,848, or 66 percent, of the
inmates. More than 13,000 of them were black.

The judges refused to reduce the sentences for 8,361 inmates. Among
the reasons cited by the judges for the denials: the inmates were
career criminals, their convictions involved large amounts of crack
cocaine and for the protection of the public. 
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