The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that federal judges can stray outside of federal sentencing guidelines when sentencing crack cocaine-related cases. Over the past several years, there's been much concern voiced over sentencing disparities between powder cocaine and crack: for instance, it takes possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine to get yourself a 5-year mandatory minimum sentence, but only 5 grams of crack to get the same mandatory minimum. Shortly after the Supreme Court decision, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to apply the new sentencing leeway retroactively. So now, if a federal judge OKs it, a prisoner convicted of a crack-related offense may be able to get out of prison early. I was skimming through the Google News page on the topic, and I noticed that almost all the linked editorials supported these developments, all save one gadfly: the Washington Times.
Personally, I think the recent decisions are positive developments, because I don't think that imprisonment is the proper societal response to people abusing drugs. As it turns out, though, not everyone agrees with me. (Can you imagine?) I thought I'd take a close look at the Washington Times editorial and see if I could pinpoint where our differences lie. Perhaps I would find errors in the Times's reasoning, or maybe I'd find errors in my own, but either way I was sure to have a good time. And so, I present to you a sentence-by-sentence analysis of a Washington Times editorial on the subject of the federal sentencing of crack cocaine offenses.
First, if you're interested, some links:
The Supreme Court decision [.pdf]
The U.S. Sentencing Commission Press ReleaseThe Washington Times editorialAnd now, the analysis. The Washington Times editorial is in italics:
A dubious decision on crack cocaine
The U.S. Sentencing Commission's unanimous vote to grant retroactive leniency on federal sentences for crack-cocaine offenses is an unwise decision.
So far we can gather that the Washington Times is not happy about recent developments.
In its decision, the commission opened the possibility of granting free passes to nearly 20,000 prisoners, many of them from violent gangs, who are serving time on crack-cocaine sentences in facilities across the country.
"Free passes"? That's a bit of an overstatement. What we're talking about here is the possibility of a reduced sentence, at the discretion of a federal judge. Anyone released will still have served significant prison time. For instance, in the particular case that the Supreme Court decided, the defendant still faces a 15-year mandatory minimum.
"Nearly 20,000 prisoners": The inclusion of this number seems to be intended to give the reader pause: "Wait, they're going to let out 20,000 prisoners onto our streets? Ack!" Another way to look at this would be that 20,000 people will be rescued from having to serve sentences that are unfairly harsh.
"violent gangs": It's immaterial whether the prisoners in question belong to violent gangs. Any sentence reduction they may get will be based on their possession or distribution of crack cocaine, not on any violent acts they may have been involved in. (And federal judges are instructed in the Sentencing Commission's decision to consider the public safety consequences of releasing a defendant from prison early when sentencing.) We've got laws to punish people that commit violent acts; we shouldn't have to rely on the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine to help solve our violent gang problem.
Offered as an amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, the rule will take retroactive effect March 3 because Congress failed to step in and ensure that drug abusers fulfill their terms of punishment."failed"? Maybe Congress chose not to step in.
"...their terms of punishment"? The terms of punishment have changed; that's the whole point. The Supreme Court and U.S. Sentencing Commission have decided that some people currently imprisoned for crack cocaine offenses may have been given overly harsh sentences, and now they will allow federal judges to right those wrongs, at the judges' discretion. In such cases, the original terms of punishment have now been deemed incorrect, and new terms of punishment will be assigned. It is not a
prima facie failure that Congress did nothing to stop this development.
The commission's vote came on the heels of a 7-2 decision Monday by the Supreme Court, allowing federal judges to ignore federal sentencing guidelines and grant shorter prison terms for crack-cocaine cases.This is a statement of fact, so no complaints here.
Proponents of the Sentencing Commission's decision try to allay fears by citing the fact that the affected 20,000 prisoners would be eligible for release over a 30-year period, lessening the potential backlash that could come from a release en masse.
This seems to suggest that the Supreme Court and Sentencing Commission should have considered a potential public backlash when making their decisions. For all I know, there's legal precedent for this, but it strikes me as wrong. If certain prisoners are currently unjustly imprisoned, they should be released because it's the right thing to do, public opinion be damned. We're a country that operates on laws, not mob rule.
However, this fact does little to quell skepticism, according to the Department of Justice, which opposes the retroactive leniency. According to the Justice Department, about 23 percent of these prisoners would be eligible for release within the next year, with nearly 10 percent of those becoming eligible immediately upon the effective date. Nearly half of the total defendants, or 47 percent, could be released by the third year and 66 percent by the fifth year. That's 13,200 of the criminals who would be released into our streets before serving their full sentence.
Note that the numbers given here are maximums. As I understand it, these are the prisoners whose cases will be eligible for review by a federal judge. Not all of them are guaranteed an early release.
"our streets": This is based on an 'us vs. them' mentality: there are us good people, and then there are the criminals. To be sure, there are plenty of criminals who have done despicable things, plenty that I never want to encounter in my life, criminals that I think it's important we separate from the rest of society. But at the same time, by emotionally detaching ourselves from criminals using an 'us vs. them' mentality, we're being unrealistic and hampering our own efforts at fighting crime. I think that true progress against crime will come when we understand what it is that makes a person, not a "them", commit crime.
"...serving their full sentence": I repeat: we're changing their full sentence. If a federal judge reduces a prisoner's sentence, the resulting sentence is the new full sentence. The point is that the original sentences were too harsh, and we're righting a wrong by changing them. Nobody will get released "before" their full sentence is up. I don't know why the Washington Times editors place any stock in the original sentences. The same legal process that led to those original sentences is what will now lead to the reduced sentences, so why stay attached to the old ones?
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Michigan Democrat, and Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Carolyn Kilpatrick, Michigan Democrat, hailed the commission's vote as a step toward closing what they see as an unfair racial gap between federal crack-cocaine and powder-cocaine sentences. It seems crack is the drug of choice among blacks and whites prefer powder, since an estimated 86 percent of these nearly 20,000 criminals who could receive commuted sentences for crack-related offenses are black. Mr. Conyers, who is black, has promised to hold hearings in hopes of granting further laxity for crack offenders, since they typically receive harsher sentences than their powder counterparts. However, these charges of racism are overblown; that's because our judicial system recognizes that crack is the more potent and deadly of the two.
Glad to see some politicians from my area of the country in the national news.
I'm not sure why it's relevant to the argument that John Conyers is black. The fact that he's black might make him more prone to advocate for issues of concern to other black people, but I don't see how that helps the argument here.
I've got nothing to say about the racism angle of all this, but it's clear to me that the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine is unfair. I'd like to see some evidence that crack is the more "potent and deadly" of the two, but even if I grant that point, is it 100 times as potent and deadly? You get the same mandatory minimum sentence for possessing 5 grams of crack that you do for possessing 500 grams of powder cocaine. If the judicial system "recognizes" that crack is 100 times more potent and deadly than powder cocaine, the judicial system is just wrong.
Justice Department officials have also pointed out that the retroactive sentencing laxity will waste taxpayer dollars that should go toward prosecuting crime. Instead, taxpayers will pay for the clogging of our justice system with resentencing cases. Of course, this comes at a time when violent crime is on the rise in many inner-city areas. But the Sentencing Commission is apparently oblivious to the public-safety consequences of turning loose tens of thousands of drug-addicted ex-convicts — many of whom will be coming back to poor, inner-city communities already struggling under the weight of drug addiction and crime.
All the points raised in this final paragraph are immaterial to the decisions of the Supreme Court and Sentencing Commission. The Court and the Commission both acted to right past wrongs: they decided that some people may have been given overly harsh sentences for crack cocaine offenses, and now we're going to allow federal judges to reduce those sentences where appropriate in an attempt to do the right thing. It doesn't matter that it will cost money to see this through, what matters is doing the right thing. If money needed for the effective prosecution of crime ends up being diverted, then more prosecuting money should be appropriated. If these decisions result in a clogged justice system, that's the fault of the justice system -- not the fault of the decision-makers who were trying to do the right thing -- and we should address that issue separately. Meanwhile, recidivism is undeniably a problem, but it's no more a problem in this case than it is for any sentencing decision. No matter what sentence you give someone for a crime, recidivism will be a concern; in this situation, we're only concerned with whether the sentence given was the right one. It's not clear what effect the sentence reductions will have on recidivism rates, and as I mentioned, federal judges have been instructed to take public safety concerns into account when deciding whether to reduce a sentence.
To say that the Sentencing Commission is "turning loose tens of thousands of drug-addicted ex-convicts" is misleading. In the case decided by the Supreme Court, the issue at hand was whether a judge's sentence of 15 years in prison was inappropriately short given that the sentencing guidelines recommend 19 to 22.5 years. The 15-year sentence is just a 25% or so reduction from the sentence recommended by the guidelines. Now, I haven't done my homework, but I imagine that most of the sentence reductions to come would be similar in amount. Plenty of crack cocaine offenders who have served sentences based on the sentencing guidelines would have been released in the coming years anyway, and the annual number of releases will just be bumped up for several years as some prisoners are released sooner. The mental image that the reader gets from "turning loose tens of thousands" is a flood of ex-cons pouring out of the prison gates, but that's not the reality of the situation.
Finally, regarding the claim that our tens of thousands of ex-convicts will be "drug-addicted": how many of the early-release convicts will be addicted? How many were even addicted in the first place? These are not just rhetorical questions; I don't know the answer. The Washington Times seems sure that the ex-convicts will all be addicted upon release, but I'd like to see some evidence to back up that claim. Note that to reach the "tens of thousands" figure, we have to count all the ex-convicts who it is supposed will be released early over the next thirty years. Does The Washington Times expect that all the federal prisoners currently imprisoned for crack cocaine offenses will be addicted when they're finally released, even the ones who won't be released for another thirty years? "Tens of thousands of drug-addicted ex-convicts" is a bit of a stretch.
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Well, that's it for my analysis of a Washington Times editorial. I learned that I don't agree much with this editorial. Hopefully you enjoyed yourself; I did!
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