Sentencing Commission to Revisit Crack-Powder Penalties
What is the most unfair, draconian law passed during the Reagan Administration that is still law today? The one that makes the the penalties for crack cocaine offenses 100 times more severe than those for powder cocaine.
Eric Sterling has an op-ed in the LA Times today on the topic. Tomorrow, the U.S. Sentencing Commission will hold hearings on the disparate penalties.
ONE OF OUR MOST infamous contemporary laws is the 100-1 difference in sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Under federal drug laws, prison sentences are usually tied to the quantity of drugs the defendant trafficked. For example, selling 5,000 grams of powder cocaine (about a briefcase full) gets a mandatory 10-year prison sentence, but so does selling only 50 grams of crack cocaine (the weight of a candy bar).
Working for the House Judiciary Committee in 1986, I wrote the House bill that was the basis for that law. We made some terrible mistakes.
Sterling observes:
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