Dec 13, 2007 1:35 pm US/Central
In The Know: Crack, Powder, It's The Same
(WCCO)
The U.S. sentencing commission has
ruled that harsher sentences for crack-cocaine felons -- compared to people
with the same amount of powdered cocaine -- is wrong.
Don Shelby said it took the
commission and Congress 17 years to agree with a Minnesota judge.
Judge Pam Alexander got tired of
sentencing black people to jail for long terms when the guidelines under which
she operated allowed other people with the same amount of cocaine in powder
form to be punished much less harshly. She said the tough words: This is
racism.
The overwhelming number of crack
defendants were black, and the traditional powder defendants weren't. So, she
said, cocaine is cocaine, and all things being equal, so should the sentences.
The federal sentencing commission
tried the same thing, but Congress, controlled by the get-tough-on-drugs crowd
overruled it. To a lot of folks it looked like Congress was a
get-tough-on-blacks crowd.
The commission tried again and
succeeded.
The new Congress didn't try to reverse
the decision, and (Wednesday) it made that decision retroactive to all crack
sentences.
In March, crack convicts can appeal
the length of their sentence. Judge Alexander deserves a pat on the back for
bringing justice to the judicial system -- 17 years before the rest of the
country found it.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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