Shorter Sentences for Crack Dealers

Last month, while you were Christmas shopping, the U.S. Supreme Court, in two separate cases, eased sentencing guidelines for judges in crack cocaine cases.
The net result: shorter sentences are possible for distributors of crack cocaine.
Both were 7-2 decisions.
The background: Congress, in the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, mandated far stiffer sentences for crack cocaine than powdered cocaine. Example: the same five-year minimum for possession of 5 grams of crack as for 100 times as much powdered cocaine.
There was an assumption then that crack cocaine was deadlier. Subsequent studies challenge that.
But no one challenges that crack cocaine is more common in cities, powder in suburbs, and, as a result, more black people are convicted for
crack cocaine use. They make up 80 percent of those sentenced for crack-dealing, according to David Stout of the New York Times.
Many felt that low-income minorities in cities were unfairly receiving harsher sentences.
In the first case, the court upheld a Virginia district judge who had refused to follow the stricter guidelines.
In the second, the court upheld a three years’ probation sentence, instead of the recommended three years in prison, for a young man who sold Ecstasy while in college.
He had since finished college, served with the Marines in the Gulf war, and had no felony convictions.
The dissenting justices in both cases were Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
Of course Congress also could have dealt with this issue with new legislation, but the poisonous air in this country’s politics probably would have punished those who wanted a change as being soft on drugs.