{"id":5027,"date":"2009-05-04T21:44:36","date_gmt":"2009-05-05T02:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=5027"},"modified":"2009-05-04T21:46:50","modified_gmt":"2009-05-05T02:46:50","slug":"fairness-in-federal-cocaine-sentencing-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/05\/fairness-in-federal-cocaine-sentencing-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Fairness in Federal Cocaine Sentencing Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As is notorious, federal law treats\u00a0one gram of crack cocaine the same as 100 grams of powder cocaine. Thus, a defendant caught with\u00a0five grams of crack faces the same five-year mandatory minimum prison term as a powder cocaine offender in possession of 500 grams; 50 grams of crack produces the same ten-year minimum as\u00a0five kilograms of powder. Despite a steady stream of criticism from academics, judges, and the United States Sentencing Commission over the past 20 years, Congress has declined to revisit the 100:1 ratio. In 2007, the Commission took a small step towards remedying the imbalance, reducing crack sentences under the advisory federal sentencing guidelines (which also contained a 100:1 crack\/powder disparity) by\u00a0two levels, then designating the amendment for retroactive application. As a result, thousands of federal crack prisoners received sentence reductions averaging about 17 percent. However, as the Commission itself acknowledged, true reform would require Congress to modify the 100:1 ratio and the resulting statutory mandatory minimum terms. Based on a change in position by the last major player supportive of the 100:1 disparity, the United States Department of Justice, that reform may, finally, be imminent.<\/p>\n

In recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer indicated that the Administration “believes Congress’s goal should be to completely eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine.” It is too soon to tell whether Congress will completely eliminate the disparity, as the Justice Department appears to advocate, or merely narrow it to, say, 10:1 or 20:1, as the Commission and some legislators have previously recommended. Whatever it elects to do, Congress should consider retroactive application of the statutory change. Experience under the Commission’s recent crack guideline amendment shows that courts are well-equipped to apply the change to existing sentences.<\/p>\n

Federal law contains a provision, 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 3582(c)(2), permitting courts to reduce prison terms based on sentencing guideline ranges subsequently reduced by the Sentencing Commission. Generally, such motions are easy for a federal district court to decide. The judge calculates the guideline range based on the amendment, then determines whether a reduction is warranted given the nature of the offense, the character of the defendant (including his post-sentencing conduct), and public safety considerations. The court does not conduct an entirely new sentencing procedure; it simply determines whether a reduction consistent with the amendment is warranted. In the Eastern District of Wisconsin, many, if not most, such motions came to the court based on stipulations between the parties that a reduction was warranted. To their credit, the United States Attorney’s Office and the defense bar worked together to ensure a smooth flow of motions. It appears that, despite doomsday warnings from certain quarters, most courts handled the retroactive amendment with relatively little difficulty.<\/p>\n

Congress could ensure that a statutory change in the 100:1 ratio applies retroactively by directing the Commission to amend the guidelines consistently with the new ratio — whatever it might be — and to list that amendment among those applicable retroactively. Courts could then reduce sentences consistently with the new ratio. Through this process, Congress could provide a measure of sentencing fairness far too long denied<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As is notorious, federal law treats\u00a0one gram of crack cocaine the same as 100 grams of powder cocaine. Thus, a defendant caught with\u00a0five grams of crack faces the same five-year mandatory minimum prison term as a powder cocaine offender in possession of 500 grams; 50 grams of crack produces the same ten-year minimum as\u00a0five kilograms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-criminal-law-process","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}