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Change Sought to Crack Sentencing
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
By: Sean Reilly
WASHINGTON -- Congress should seek changes to cocaine-sentencing guidelines as part of any deal made with the Bush administration to block the early release of some drug offenders now in prison, a senior Democratic lawmaker said Tuesday.
"Now's the time to try to work something out if we can," U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of a Senate subcommittee on drug policy, said after a two-hour hearing.
Under a recent decision by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, about 19,500 federal inmates doing time for crack cocaine offenses -- including almost 300 sentenced in Mobile -- can seek early release in coming years.
The U.S. Justice Department, which says the decision could flood the courts with criminals seeking reduced sentences, wants Congress to intercede by March 3.
But at Tuesday's committee hearing, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said he had heard no outcry from colleagues. Walton, who serves in the District of Columbia, was representing the U.S. Judicial Conference, which helps make policy for federal courts.
Biden said he sees the issue as being intertwined with the revisiting of sentencing guidelines that currently treat 5 grams of crack -- less than the weight of a packet of ketchup -- as seriously as 500 grams of powder cocaine, with both bringing a mandatory five-year minimum sentence.
Speaking on behalf of the Justice Department, federal prosecutor Gretchen Shappert of North Carolina signaled a willingness to discuss the issue but offered no specifics on the department's position.
Of those sentenced in Mobile, 37 could get out immediately, while 39 would be eligible for release within a year, according to a Sentencing Commission analysis. The local U.S. attorney's office believes that the overall number is lower.
Approved in 1986 as crack was taking hold in American cities, the "100-1" sentencing ratio has had a large and disproportionate impact on the black community. About 82 percent of crack offenders are black, compared to about 8 percent who are white, according to preliminary data for fiscal 2007.
The sentencing disparity -- and the discovery that some of the more dire assumptions about crack's effects were wrong -- has spawned a growing movement for change.
Biden, for example, has introduced legislation that would eliminate the disparity completely, while U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, is lead sponsor on a bipartisan bill that would reduce the ratio to 20-1.
"I believe we are now on a path to do something right about this problem," Sessions, a former federal prosecutor, said at the hearing.
He objected, however, to the early release of people already in prison, echoing the Justice Department's argument that it would lead to an increase in violent crime.
Biden pointed to Sentencing Commission statistics indicating that almost 90 percent of crack offenders are nonviolent.
There is an "enhanced prospect," he said afterward, that the Justice Department will agree to changes in the sentencing ratio if it can get something on the early release issue.
Asked whether there is enough time to hammer out an agreement by early next month, he said, "the way major deals get done is when deadlines are looming."
This article was originally published by the Mobile Press-Register.
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