New crack bill gets it half right
8/31/06
In July Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) introduced S. 3725, the “Drug Sentencing Reform Act of 2006,” which has now been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Sessions and the bill’s cosponsors – Sens. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) – are former state attorneys general.
As with Sen. Sessions’s 2002 crack cocaine bill, S. 3725 would decrease the 100:1 sentencing disparity to 20:1 between crack and powder cocaine by altering the five-and 10-year mandatory minimum penalties for the drugs, benefiting some defendants convicted of crack offenses but resulting in longer sentence for some defendants convicted of powder cocaine offenses.
While FAMM applauds the concerns of these senators with the harshness of crack cocaine sentences and the undue influence of drug quantity on sentence length, it contends that S. 3725 only gets it half right. For years, crack and powder penalties have been linked because it takes 100 times more crack cocaine than powder cocaine to receive the same sentence, even though they are the same drug. Since 1995 policymakers have acknowledged that crack penalties are excessive, but no one has ever complained that current powder cocaine sentences are too lenient.
FAMM believes that, instead of tinkering with drug weights, the senators should reform mandatory minimum sentencing laws so that drug weight alone does not have such an overbearing influence on sentence length. Sentences should be based on traditional factors such as culpability, role in the offense, and the use of weapons or violence. Congress needs to allow the courts to consider all factors of the offense and the offender to insure a fair and proportionate sentencing system.
Such reforms would not happen with S. 3725. Instead, the triggering threshold for crack would be increased from 50 grams to 200 grams for the 10-year penalty and from five grams to 20 grams for the five-year penalty. However, S. 3725 would also lower the triggering amounts for powder cocaine from five kilograms to four kilograms for the 10-year penalty and from 500 grams to 400 grams for the five-year penalty.
S. 3735 would decrease the penalty for simple possession of crack cocaine from five years to one year. It also directs the U.S. Sentencing Commission to make substantial changes to the guidelines, including a variety of enhancements for gun involvement, violence or for certain leaders if the offense involved at least one of many newly created “super-aggravating factors.” The bill would cap at roughly 10 years the sentence for those with a minimal role in drug-trafficking offenses and provide additional reductions for the least involved. Finally, S. 3725 would create a pilot program at one federal penitentiary for the early release of nonviolent, elderly prisoners to home confinement. The bill explicitly rules out retroactive consideration of the sentence reducing effects.