Senate bill would reduce sentencing disparities in crack, powder cocaine cases

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Washington Post

Senate bill would reduce sentencing disparities in crack, powder cocaine cases
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 13, 2010

A long-standing dispute over huge disparities in sentencing between crack vs. powdered cocaine appears to be headed for a resolution in Congress.

Senate lawmakers reached across the aisle and brokered a landmark deal this week to reduce criminal penalties for defendants caught with crack cocaine, hashing out the terms in, of all places, a congressional gym.

Opportunity struck when Sen. Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) encountered colleagues Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) in the Senate gym early Thursday, before they had started their workouts. Durbin seized the moment to advance the legislation and sent his aides an e-mail at 7:35 a.m., outlining the terms of his offer. The deal was sealed with a handshake two hours later at a committee meeting in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

The often-divided Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed the measure 19 to 0 the same day, addressing for the first time in two decades a sentencing disparity that has troubled civil rights organizations, prisoners rights advocates and officials in the Obama White House.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/12/AR2010031204124.html

[d_b]

1. w00t

Now it's only one-fifth as racist

:headbang:

[Flaneur]

2. House Judiciary passed a bill that COMPLETELY eliminates the disparity...

...by simply removing all references to "cocaine base" (crack) from the federal code.

While either would be an improvement, the House bill is clearly the better bill. The push is on to get Speaker Pelosi to get it to the House floor.

This law is clearly racist in its implementation, even if one is generous and allows that it may have not been racist in its intention. Yeah, right.

[bonemachine]

4. not sure i follow

Isn't the problem that the distinction ISN'T being made?

[naaman fletcher]

3. the only solution is legalization. nt.

[vadawg]

5. hell you may be correct, but legal crack would be a disaster

we may as well write of whole communities and go escape from new york if we did that...

[pipoman]

7. I agree, but would say

'legal cocaine would be a disaster'. Some drugs do need to be controlled substances. I am more for drug law overhaul than for blanket legalization.

[pipoman]

6. Shocked to see that they apparently

are actually lowering the penalty for crack to match powder, not raising powder to match crack..

[BumRushDaShow]

8. +100!

It is interesting.

[Yeahyeah]

9. From what I've seen crack addicts are light years more dangerous than nose candy addicts.

[slackmaster]

10. People who are caught with small amounts of any illegal drug need treatment, not incarceration

:nuke: