Senate passes bill to reduce cocaine sentencing disparity

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Senate passes bill to reduce cocaine sentencing disparity

March 18, 2010 08:32:00 am

[JURIST] The US Senate [official website] unanimously passed legislation [S 1789 materials] Wednesday to reduce sentencing disparities for powder and crack cocaine [JURIST news archive] offenses. The Fair Sentencing Act, introduced by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) [official website], would amend existing law to reduce the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine convictions from 100:1 to 18:1. Durbin, who originally voted for the sentencing disparity, said that he would have preferred a 1:1 sentencing ratio [AP report] but was happy with the compromise. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] praised the bill but said it does not go far enough and that the proposed sentencing disparities would still disproportionately affect African-Americans. Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office Laura Murphy said [press release]:

The Fair Sentencing Act is an encouraging step toward eliminating the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine but still allows for a needlessly unfair sentencing framework. The unanimous passage of this bill speaks to the understanding across the political spectrum that this disparity is unjust and in need of reform. Years of research has yielded no evidence of any appreciable difference between crack and powder cocaine and yet we continue to inflict this disparity on Americans.
For over two decades, this sentencing disparity has been a stain on our justice system. Though this bill's passage is long overdue, it does not go far enough. Without a simple and fair 1-1 sentencing ratio for crack and powder cocaine, we cannot say that these sentencing laws meet constitutional muster.

The proposed law would also eliminate the five-year mandatory sentence for first-time possession of crack cocaine and would increase monetary penalties for drug trafficking. An identical version of the bill is expected to be passed by the House and signed into law by President Barack Obama.

The bill was approved [JURIST report] by the Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] earlier this month. In July, the House Judiciary Committee [official website] voted to completely eliminate [JURIST report] the sentencing disparity. US Attorney General Eric Holder and other officials [JURIST reports] have also spoken publicly in favor of sentencing reform. In 2008, more than 3000 inmates convicted of crack cocaine offenses had their sentences reduced [JURIST report] under an amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.