Federal Cocaine Sentencing: Legal Issues (CRS Report for Congress)
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| Release Date |
April 25, 2002 |
| Report Number |
97-743 |
| Authors |
Paul S. Wallace, Jr., American Law Division |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
Summary:
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act provided mandatory minimum sentences of imprisonment for
possession
with intent to distribute powder and crack cocaine. In this statute Congress established a quantitative
100-to-1 sentence ratio between the two ( i.e ., it takes 100 times as much powder cocaine
as crack
cocaine to trigger the same sentence). Under this distinction, a person convicted of possession with
intent to distribute a pound of powder cocaine (453.6 grams) would serve considerably less time in
a federal prison than one convicted of possession with intent to distribute 5 grams of crack. The
United States Sentencing Commission incorporated the ratio into its generally binding sentencing
guidelines.
Since enactment, it has become apparent that the incidence of this sentencing differential falls
disproportionately on African-American defendants. The disparate impact has been attacked without
great success on several judicial fronts. Equal protection and due process arguments have floundered
on the finding that the distinction was not motivated by racial animus or discriminatory intent, but
rather was related to the legitimate government purpose of protecting the public against the greater
dangers of crack cocaine. Thus far, defendants have encountered similar difficulties proving the
requisite corrupt motivation to establish selective prosecution or sentencing entrapment defenses.
Further, the federal appellate courts have found that the stiff minimum sentences for offenses
involving crack cocaine are rational and not disproportionate to the seriousness of those offenses.
Consequently, they do not offend the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment.
And the courts have been no more receptive to pleas to mitigate the disparate impact by departing
from the severity of the sentencing guidelines.
Instructed to study the situation, the Sentencing Commission promulgated amendments that
would equate crack and powder cocaine for sentencing purposes and recommended that Congress
drop the 100-to-1 ratio from its own mandatory penalties. Congress rejected both the amendments
and the suggestion for equation, but directed the Commission to re-examine the issue and report back
recommendations reflecting more moderate adjustments. The Commission subsequently
recommended that the penalties be adjusted to a ratio somewhere between 1-to-1 2/3 and 1-to 15.
The Commission has made no further recommendations.
Legislative efforts to reduce or eliminate the disparity have thus far come to impasse over two
issues: (1) the appropriate ratio and (2) whether and to what extent crack penalties should be reduced
or powder penalties enhanced to achieve the proper balance.
