From Slate.com:

In federal court, crack offenses generate sentences 100 times greater than comparable powder-cocaine crimes. In other words, while it takes 500 grams of cocaine to trigger a five-year mandatory minimum sentence, 5 grams of crack earns the same punishment. Last month, four senators introduced a bill to close that gap. The proposed bipartisan legislation, sponsored by Republicans John Cornyn and Jeff Sessions along with Democrats Mark Pryor and Ken Salazar, would reduce the penalty ratio from 100-to-1 to 20-to-1 by increasing powder penalties slightly while decreasing crack sentences significantly.

The 100-to-1 penalty ratio dates from 1986, when lawmakers established mandatory minimum sentences in response to widespread fear of a crack epidemic. For years judges have railed against the heavy crack sentences as unfair, and Congress has considered amending them before. What’s different this time is that the judges are doing more than complaining. Seizing on a Supreme Court decision that expanded their discretion over sentencing, judges have justified less harsh punishments for some crack offenders by trumpeting the sentencing scale’s many faults. And rather than ignoring the judges or trying to silence them, Congress may actually be listening, for a change.

• Officer Golden’s killer to be sentenced soon
• Judge strikes down reparations
• Now it all makes sense
• Orr aims to shore up marriage license requirements
• Bury this story: Deficit is decreasing

This entry was posted by Brian on Thursday, August 24th, 2006 at 1:36 am and is filed under Drugs, Sen. Sessions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.