Court: Judges can reduce crack sentences

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday said judges may impose shorter prison terms for crack cocaine crimes, enhancing judicial discretion to reduce the disparity between sentences for crack and cocaine powder.

By a 7-2 vote, the court said that a 15-year sentence given to Derrick Kimbrough, a black veteran of the 1991 war with Iraq, was acceptable, even though federal sentencing guidelines called for Kimbrough to receive 19 to 22 years.

In a separate sentencing case that did not involve crack cocaine, the court also ruled in favor of judicial discretion to impose more lenient sentences than federal guidelines recommend.

The challenges to criminal sentences center on a judge's discretion to impose a shorter sentence than is called for in guidelines established by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, at Congress' direction. The guidelines were adopted in the mid-1980s to help produce uniform punishments for similar crimes.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071210/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_crack_cocaine

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will update the link when there is more

[Heidi]

1. This has been far too long coming.

Recommending.

:kick:

[flpoljunkie]

2. The dissenters in the 7-2 vote: Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas

[boricua79]

6. once again...clarence, clarence, clarence

a black man who should know that crack sentences are disproportionately hurting the black/brown/poor and that it's unfair to punish someone in harsher ways for using the same substance (in essence) than the one using cocaine.

I thought he got all uppity about wanting to be treated EQUALLY (remember his shame at being a product of affirmative action). Well...here's a chance to make it equal for the black/brown/poor and he purposely votes against it. With all the social science literature talking about race, class, and sentence disparities, he STILL votes against reducing crack sentences? He de facto allows for a condition where wealthier whites get away with lighter sentences, whereas the black/brown/poor, having no recourse to cocaine in its powder form, get stiffed with harder sentences.

That's not a black man who happens to be a Republican. This goes beyond having an ideological affinity to the Republican party.

This, my friends, is as Uncle Tom as you're going to get. It almost seems like he doesn't miss an opportunity to stick it to blacks to prove himself to whites. There's serious "inferiority" overcompensation going on here. He's an absolute disgrace to his people and not fit for the position he holds..

[noonwitch]

7. I agree with you that both should be sentenced the same, but I have heard a good argument

for imposing tougher sentences on crack, and I heard it from a black lawyer.

The argument is that crack cocaine destroys neighborhoods and cities in a way that powder cocaine, with it's upscale clientele, does not. If you live in a city like Detroit or Baltimore, you understand this even if you don't agree that there should be a difference in sentencing.

[boricua79]

9. hmmm...

I understood the black lawyer's point of view.

But what is really destroying the community. The use of crack is like any other drug...it exists to provide an artificial, chemical release...something to use to cope with social problems.

If you legalize drugs, drugs become cheaper to buy and you reduce, if not eliminate, violent crime associated with drug sales or drug purchasing or acquiring drugs. That helps a community. What you may get in return is a rise in addicts...but then you treat THAT problem the same you way you treat cigarette addiction: through education, promotional campaigns, preventive medicine tactics, and other ways.

What you don't want to do is continue on the same process, because people are going to get high, and to do it, they will pay more (which will deplete their bank accounts and lead to more personal poverty), or steal, violently if need be, to get the money to pay for the drugs.

I'm all for thinking up ideas. But treating crack and cocaine differently is not acceptable to me. Either legalize all drugs, or put equal punishment on crack and cocaine. I prefer the first solution, and then to start thinking up how to address the expected by-product: rise in addictions.

[heliarc]

10. I have a friend who is mortified...

by the way that cocaine ruined her household. She is a mom who is a recovering addict destroyed by the drug. I know another story of a successful agent who was fired from William Morris because he couldn't hold it together. His clients lost lots of professional ground because by the end of it all their accounts were in disarray. Projects were aborted midstride, and the respect that the agent lost was reflected on his former clients. If you somehow are arguing that rich people are better functioning addicts, you are making a very classist argument. You're basically saying that poor people should be punished more just because they're poor. That's the most ridiculous offensive argument I've heard in a long while.

I for one am not so sure that drugs should be illegal, but if there is a sentence it BETTER be equally administered for equal crimes. After all, an addict who is a slave to a vice is not individually responsible for the decline of their whole neighborhood. The check cashing place, or the local WalMart are more at fault for that.

[lynnertic]

13. you mentino the check cashing place bringing down a neighborhood

I realized yesterday that I'm paying out more than $100/mo in credit card interest. I've never done it but from the news reports I hear that two payday loans/month costs $80.

It's apples and oranges but this credit card has to go!

[maxsolomon]

11. on another board today

i got called "backwoods stupid" for calling him uncle thomas.

[boricua79]

12. oh whatever

black people themselves call him that. It's just white guilt that allows for people to condemn you for saying what he is.

From the beginning of white/black human relations, there have always been those that resisted because of their dignity, and those who sold out for better advantages and benefits. Clarence is a clear cut case of someone who used affirmative action to enter school, and then condemned it because he felt guilty. At every turn, he uses his decisions to destroy policies that have been proven to help African-AMericans in this country.

We're hardly the first to make this point:

http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/j/judging-thomas.shtml
http://home.att.net/~vlaszlo/clarence_thomas_1.htm
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID={C6BC14C3-2A7F-41AE-9FB8-DE6AADF4FD5F}

[maxsolomon]

3. yeah, 15 years is completely appropriate

whereas 19 is out of control.

:sarcasm:

[Bandit]

4. One more black that will never be able to vote against Republicans.

It is planned...

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

5. In another eight decisions, it may get to zero

which is just about right for most drugs.

Legalizing drugs is on nobody's political agenda, unfortunately.

[maxsolomon]

14. can't even talk about it until a democrat is in their 2nd term

so set your drug legalization calendar for january 2013, hillary.

awesome. i'll be 50 & won't want to do illegal drugs anymore...

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

15. Wait 'til you're 60

then the urge will come back.

But I don't want to do illegal drugs. I want the drugs to be legal.

[downindixie]

8. Yeah,right!

"Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attemps to control a man's appetite by legislation,and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes"

Abraham Lincoln