December 10, 2007
Judges Get More Flexibility On Crack Sentencing
In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said that federal sentencing guidelines for drug crimes were nonbinding, giving judges some breathing room on sentences for offenses involving crack cocaine. Writing for the majority [PDF], Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg drew on the U.S. Sentencing Commission's recommendations that the 100-to-1 cocaine-crack possession ratio established by Congress be revised.
In 1986, Congress set much harsher penalties for crack cocaine offenders out of fear that use of the drug was fast becoming an epidemic in urban areas. The disparity in penalties can be seen in U.S. prisons, where blacks are disproportionately represented while powder cocaine offenders, who are mostly white, get off relatively easily.
Some activists have called the lopsided U.S. drug policy blatantly racist, but that was not really a calculation in today's decision. "A district judge must include the Guidelines range in the array of factors warranting consideration, but the judge may determine that, in the particular case, a within-Guidelines sentence is 'greater than necessary' to serve the objectives of sentencing," Ginsburg wrote. "In making that determination, the judge may consider the disparity between the Guidelines' treatment of crack and powder offenses."
Ginsburg noted that the Commission stopped short of calling for equal treatment of cocaine and crack offenders, based on evidence that crack offenses are more likely to be paired with weapons violations and other violent crimes. "Congressional inaction" on the Commission's recommendations could be read as "tacit approval," Ginsburg added, citing the Commission's "characteristic institutional role."
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.
The Bush administration had argued that judges had no authority to deviate from the sentencing guidelines. Today's decision invites Congress to codify the Commission's recommendations -- a path that many of the 2008 presidential candidates, including Republican Mike Huckabee, have said they would pursue. California is the most high-profile of the states wrestling with prison overcrowding issues, which have in some cases forced the early release of convicts.
See ScotusBlog for more on the Supremes' decision.
Posted at 1:55 PM
Posted to:
Bush Administration, Campaigns, Congress, Constitution, Crime, Drugs, Mike Huckabee, Republicans, Supreme Court, WH 2008
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