The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Monday's high court decision was aimed at federal mandatory minimum guidelines that often force federal judges to impose stiff sentences for drug offenders in general, but particularly so for offenses involving crack cocaine. One of the cases that went before the court involved a man arrested in Norfolk, Va., in 2004 with 56 grams of crack, 92 grams of powder cocaine and a gun. Under federal guidelines, the judge had to weigh the crack charge as a greater offense than possession of powder cocaine, which would have meant a sentence of 19 to 22 years in prison. By contrast, the man would have had to possess 5,000 grams of powder cocaine to merit such a harsh sentence. The judge, understandably, reduced the man's sentence to 15 years after considering his record of employment and service in the first Gulf War.

The government argued that the lenient sentence would encourage more drug crime. But the high court, in a 7-2 decision, wisely concluded that drug sentences should be reasonable and "sufficient, but not greater than necessary" to punish the offender and protect society from crime.

That should be the standard under the Rockefeller Drug Laws as well, but the harsh mandatory minimums, while softened somewhat in recent years, still leave judges with little choice but to sentence defendants to long prison terms even if the facts of their case cry out for leniency.

The Legislature, to its credit, adopted reforms in 2004 and 2005 that abolished mandatory life sentences for the highest level drug crimes, known as A1, and allowed Class A2 offenders to appeal their sentences. But those reforms affected only several hundred offenders, compared with the 13,900 prisoners now serving time in New York for drug offenses.

The saner policy would be to explore alternative sentencing for many of these offenders, especially programs to help addicts who fell victim to the drug trade. Yet the Legislature has been reluctant to go much beyond the reforms of 2004 and 2005, largely because of pressure from district attorneys who want to use the Rockefeller Drug Laws as a club to wrest plea bargains from suspects.

Regrettably, the Spitzer administration missed an opportunity last October to build on the reform momentum when the governor's Commission on Sentencing Reform issued its review of the state's sentencing practices last October. But now that the highest court in the land has supported judicial discretion in sentencing, there is added reason for the commission and the Legislature to call for judges to decide what is fair punishment, not rigid guidelines that so often are miscarriages of justice in their own right.

THE ISSUE: The Supreme Court allows judges to decide drug sentences.

THE STAKES: The Legislature has one less excuse for keeping the Rockefeller Drug Laws.
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=646504&category=OPINI
ON&newsdate=12/12/2007