Obama Administration Supports Eliminating Crack Sentencing Disparity

Jacob Sullum | April 29, 2009

Today the Justice Department announced that it supports eliminating the sentencing disparity between crack and cocaine powder, under which five grams of smokable cocaine triggers the same sentence as 500 grams of the snortable form. The DOJ's position is not surprising, since President Obama has repeatedly criticized excessively long mandatory minimum sentences and Vice President Biden (a semi-repentant hardline drug warrior) sponsored legislation as a senator that would make crack penalties the same as the penalties for cocaine powder. Still, the Obama administration's early and strong support for sentencing reform is a welcome contrast to the Bush administration.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer stated the DOJ's position at a hearing on crack sentences held by the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs. One of the other witnesses is Cedric Parker, whose sister, Eugenia Jennings, is eight years into a 22-year sentence for two transactions in which she exchanged small amounts of crack for clothing. Because of some minior drug priors, she was treated as a "career offender." Even so, her sentence would have been about half as long had she traded cocaine powder instead of crack. At her sentencing hearing, the judge told her:

Now is that fair? No. It's not....But the truth of the matter is, it's not in my hands. As I told you, Congress has determined that the best way to handle people who are troublesome is we just lock them up. Congress passed the laws.

Now, with pro-reform Democrats in control of the White House and Congress, it has a chance to unpass them.

Lanny Breuer's testimony is here. Cedric Parker's testimony is here (PDF). Families Against Mandatory Minimums has more here. In a 2007 column, I argued that there is no rational basis for the federal government's cocaine sentencing policies.

Comments

|4.29.09 @ 12:30PM|#

This is a good thing. Now push hard, Mr President.

Naga Sadow|4.29.09 @ 12:31PM|#

Great. Now cue Juanita to make an appearance followed by J sub D mooning over her with surprisingly good poetry. Commence countdown.

Jack Thread|4.29.09 @ 12:39PM|#

Obama to ration health care?

I don't know how much that hip replacement cost. I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she's my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else's aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they're terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question. If somebody told me that my grandmother couldn't have a hip replacement and she had to lie there in misery in the waning days of her life - that would be pretty upsetting. ...

So that's where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But that's also a huge driver of cost, right?

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here. ...

Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that's part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It's not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that's part of what I suspect you'll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.

Juanita|4.29.09 @ 12:46PM|#

I agree the disparity is bad because of its disparate effect on minorities, particularly Africans. I think they solved it wrong, instead of decreasing crack penalties, they should have increased powder penalties. Any politician that is soft on crime is not going to be re-elected.

As I told you, Congress has determined that the best way to handle people who are troublesome is we just lock them up.

I agree, people who use drugs deserve SEVERE penalties. The government has a right and in fact an obligation to ban things that are not good for us. Anything, such as SEVERE penalties that helps the cops keep us all off drugs is inherintly a good thing, I'm all for it.

|4.29.09 @ 12:48PM|#

Spooky, Naga.

|4.29.09 @ 12:50PM|#

Another nice press release from Obama. Let's see if he backs this one up. Remember, folks, results count, not press releases.

He could, of course, commute the sentences of any federal prisoners banged up on crack cocaine charges to match what they would have gotten on powder cocaine charges. But that'll never happen.

|4.29.09 @ 12:55PM|#

RC has a point. Until there is actual reform here, and hopefully some people released from prison, it means Jack and shit, and Jack left town (probably to escape a crack cocaine charge).

Shop smart, shop S-Mart.

|4.29.09 @ 1:01PM|#

Why do my Cheerios suddenly taste like RC's urine?

Point taken.

Naga Sadow|4.29.09 @ 1:02PM|#

fractional libertarian,

My spidey sense was tingling.

Art-P.O.G.|4.29.09 @ 1:10PM|#

Something has been bothering me...I know Juanita's spoofed now, but was she ever a real person? And either way, what stroke of genius or idiocy could inspire such a being?

|4.29.09 @ 1:12PM|#

My spidey sense was tingling.

Beware... THE TINGLER!

("We're the Council of 13, not magic angel babies.")

|4.29.09 @ 1:14PM|#

Art-P.O.G.,

Just think of her having always been a fake, a DARE parody birthed from the screaming cosmos.. You'll sleep better at night, all snuggly-wuggly in your PJs.

Naga Sadow|4.29.09 @ 1:15PM|#

Art-P.O.G.,

Beware my friend. J sub D is very adament that Juanita while occasionally spoofed is real enough.

Naga Sadow|4.29.09 @ 1:16PM|#

Well, I gotta go to my bank and tell em to loan me some money now. Get my bailout and what not. Later.

|4.29.09 @ 1:23PM|#

I expect the sentence guidelines for powder will be raised to match those for crack.

This is how we save the children from "bad outcomes".

|4.29.09 @ 1:24PM|#

And either way, what stroke of genius or idiocy could inspire such a being?

You could spend a lifetime asking just that question of, say, Joe Biden. But that way lies madness.

Eliminating the sentencing disparity would be a good thing if it actually happens, but it won't make Obama any less of a douchebag. It's the easiest, most politically popular tweak to the drug war evar. He'll get this messiness out of the way and get right back to his commanding heights.

High Every Body|4.29.09 @ 1:32PM|#

When do we get the government drug stores dispensing cocaine?

Will it come in rock and powder, or do we have to make the rocks ourselves?

|4.29.09 @ 1:49PM|#

When do we get the government drug stores dispensing cocaine?


We'll call it Victory Dust!

SpongePaul|4.29.09 @ 2:06PM|#

When do we get the government drug stores dispensing cocaine?
_______________________________________
the drugstores already have cocaine, it is in a type of porescription eyedrops

|4.29.09 @ 2:52PM|#

My lovely Juanita -

I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for their religion -
I have shudder'd at it.
I shudder no more.
I could be martyr'd for my religion
Love is my religion
And I could die for that.
I could die for you.

Always at your beck and call
J sub D

Art-P.O.G.|4.29.09 @ 2:56PM|#

Now we shall hail Naga Sadow as a prophet of this age.

High Every Body|4.29.09 @ 2:57PM|#

Always at your beck and call

I think you mean bacon all. Start towing the lion on your writing.

|4.29.09 @ 3:26PM|#

"Spidey sense"? Has anyone ever actually SEEN Naga and Juanita and J sub D together AT THE SAME TIME?!

And notice the praise of J sub D's poetry! Merely a head fake. Sure they are all three different posters, sure they are.

High Every Body|4.29.09 @ 3:29PM|#

Has anyone ever actually SEEN Naga and Juanita and J sub D together AT THE SAME TIME?!

I think that Naga's new Ninja chick would behead Juanita.

|4.29.09 @ 3:31PM|#

I am not, nor have I ever been, Naga Sadow the seer or Juanita the latina goddess.

Naga Sadow, Prophet of the Age|4.29.09 @ 8:33PM|#

Indeed. I have always seen myself as ahead of my time. Long after my demise, my words shall be pored over for portents of the future and seen as hints of the hidden depths of the great void.

*uses smoke bomb to make dramatic exit*