By: http://www.chocolatecity.cc/blog
Smoking Crack
The 100:1 ratio of cocaine powder to crack cocaine treats one hundred gram of cocaine powder as equivalent to one gram of crack cocaine. Basically that means that an individual must have about 100 grams of cocaine powder to receive at least the same punishment as a person with 1 grams of crack cocaine. For example, the sentencing guidelines prescribe the same sentence for a defendant convicted of dealing 500 grams of powder cocaine as they do for a defendant convicted of dealing only 5 grams of crack cocaine. The guidelines call for lighter prison terms for the sale of powder cocaine; a drug more favored by Whites and Hispanics. This racially bias law came about in 1986 during the Reagan’s administration aggressive anti-drug initiative. The U.S. Sentencing Commission reason for the disparity is that crack cocaine is more addictive than powder cocaine and that it is a source of street violence. Although, there is a widespread belief that crack cocaine causes crime to go up at a tremendously increased rate; one can argue that a drug is a drug and Congress should make the penalties for their possession or sale the same.
The constitutionality of crack penalties was not the issue before the Supreme Court nor was the result of their December 9th ruling. What the justices were being asked to decide was whether a judge (Raymond A. Jackson) decision to depart from the guidelines was reasonable. Judge, Raymond A. Jackson came into the picture after the case of Kimbrough v. U.S., 06-6330 was assigned to him.
Kimbrough v. U.S., 06-6330 was a case in the court about Mr. Derrick Kimbrough, an African American and an Iraq war veteran who was arrested in Norfolk in 2004 for being in possession of 92 grams of powder cocaine, 56 grams of crack cocaine, and a handgun. Mr. Kimbrough had to maneuver between two sets of sentencing schemes: 56 grams of crack cocaine possession and a hand gun possession. The 92 grams of powder cocaine is not an issue her, because it was less than 100 grams. By pleading guilty, Mr. Kimbrough guaranteed for himself a prison term of 10 years which is the minimum sentence mandated by Congress for a crime involving 50 grams or more grams of crack cocaine. He also faced an additional mandatory minimum five-year term for possession of a handgun. The penalty was stiff; especially considering that Mr. Kimbrough would have had to possess 5,600 grams of powder cocaine to earn the same sentence. Under the separate federal sentencing guidelines, he could have faced at least 14 years behind bars for the drug charge alone.
The Supreme Court in an earlier case deemed the guidelines advisory rather than binding, and he was assigned a judge, Raymond A. Jackson, who not only took heed of the court’s earlier ruling but found the penalties ridiculous and bias for crack cocaine. Mr. Kimbrough was eventually sentenced to 15 years in total, rather than the 19 to 22 years called for under the guidelines.
Obviously, The Supreme Court 7 – 2 decision ruled in favor of judges to impose shorter prison terms for crack cocaine crimes, enhanced judicial discretion to reduce the disparity between sentences for crack and cocaine powder. This case once again illustrates the need for Congress to act decisively by correcting this bias crack cocaine and powder cocaine ratio nonsense. This racial bias disproportionately affects African American defendants. Judges being granted flexibility under the sentencing guidelines in no way alleviate the flaw in the U.S legal system. Several bills to make those changes more reasonable are pending in Congress, with bipartisan sponsorship. Hopefully, lawmakers will have the courage to finally put this issue to rest.
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There are lots of disparity within the so-called “Just Us” system against Blacks and African American.