Newhawk: Matt Elrod Chicago Tribune Publisher: Crack cocaine sentencing survives high court test Chicago Tribune, April 14, 1997 WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court today rejected an appeal challenging as racially discriminatory the federal sentencing laws that punish crack cocaine offenders more harshly than those caught with powdered cocaine. The court, without comment, let stand the 10year prison sentence of a man convicted of distributing crack cocaine in the District of Columbia. ``There is a perception among AfricanAmericans that there is no more unequal treatment by the criminal justice system than in the crack vs. powder cocaine, racially biased federal sentencing provisions,'' the justices were told by lawyers for Duane Edwards. The appeal was submitted in Edwards' behalf by John C. Floyd III, who chairs the National Bar Association's criminal law section; Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree; and Los Angeles lawyer Johnnie Cochran, who successfully defended O.J. Simpson against murder charges. The appeal noted that it takes 100 times more cocaine powder than crack to draw the same 10year minimum sentence for drug trafficking. People convicted of selling at least 50 grams of crack must be sentenced to 10 years, while a cocaine powder offender gets the same sentence only if 5,000 grams or more are involved. ``Can Congress pass a law that targets young poor AfricanAmerican urban males?'' Edwards' lawyers asked rhetorically. Edwards was arrested by an undercover U.S. Park Police officer after he accompanied Vonda Dortch to a 1995 meeting in which Dortch sold the officer 126.6 grams of crack cocaine for $3,400. Edwards' racial bias argument was rejected last December when the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld his conviction. ``Congress has not acted with a discriminatory purpose in setting greater penalties for cocaine base crimes than for powder cocaine offenses,'' the appeals court said. Every federal appeals court that has studied such a challenge has rejected it, but the U.S. Sentencing Commission favors making the penalties the same for both kinds of cocaine. Attorney General Janet Reno opposes such a move, saying that prison sentences must reflect the ``harsh and terrible impact'' of crack on U.S. communities. The debate raises issues of race and class because crack is known as an innercity drug while cocaine powder is used more often in the suburbs. States have their own sentencing laws for drug crimes prosecuted in state courts, but many prosecutors are taking everincreasing numbers of drug cases to federal court because stiffer sentences are available. The case acted on today is Edwards vs. U.S., 961492. By Richard Carelli Alan Randell 1821 Knutsford Place, Victoria, B.C., Canada, V8N 6E3 Email: Telephone: 2507210356