USSC provides (yummy?) half-a-loaf crack amendment

As detailed in this official press release, the US Sentencing Commission has now completed a significant set of proposed amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines.  And though there are lots of big and small stories in all the proposed amendments, the biggest news concerns a proposed amendment to the crack guideline (and a coming report).  Here is the crack discussion of the USSC’s press release:

[T]he Commission unanimously announced today that it will submit to Congress on or before May 15, 2007, a report on federal cocaine sentencing policy.  The report will set forth current data and information that continue to support the Commission’s consistently held position that the 100-to-1 crack-powder drug quantity ratio significantly undermines various congressional objectives set forth in the Sentencing Reform Act and elsewhere.  The Commission also will make recommendations to Congress in the report for modifications to the statutory penalties for crack cocaine offenses.  At today’s meeting, the Commission expressed its firm desire that this report will facilitate prompt congressional action addressing the 100-to-1 crack-powder drug quantity ratio.

The Commission also voted today to promulgate an amendment that modifies the penalties for crack cocaine offenses.  The Commission described the problems associated with the 100-to-1 drug quantity ratio as so urgent and compelling that it promulgated the guideline amendment as a measure to alleviate some of those problems.  The statutory penalties for crack cocaine offenses require a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for a first-time trafficking offense involving 5 grams or more of crack cocaine, and a ten-year mandatory minimum penalty for a first-time trafficking offense involving 50 grams or more of crack cocaine.  When Congress established these penalties in 1986, the Commission responded by incorporating the statutory mandatory minimum sentences into the guidelines to provide guideline sentencing ranges that are above the statutory mandatory minimum penalties. First-time offenses involving 5 grams or more of crack cocaine receive a sentencing guideline range of 63 to 78 months, and first-time offenses involving 50 grams or more of crack cocaine receive a sentencing guideline range of 121 to 151 months, before accounting for other relevant factors under the guidelines.

The Commission’s amendment modifies the guideline drug quantity thresholds to provide guideline sentencing ranges that include the statutory mandatory minimum penalties for crack cocaine offenses. Accordingly, under the amendment, a first-time trafficking offense involving 5 grams of crack cocaine will receive a guideline sentencing range of 51 to 63 months, and a first-time trafficking offense involving 50 grams or more of crack cocaine will receive a guideline sentencing range of 97 to 121 months, before accounting for other relevant factors under the guidelines.  Under the statutory mandatory minimum penalties, however, a five- and ten-year sentence will still be required, respectively.  As a result, the Commission’s amendment provides some relief to crack cocaine offenders impacted by the disparity created by federal cocaine sentencing policy.

The Commission emphasized and expressed its strong view that the amendment is only a partial solution to some of the problems associated with the 100-to-1 drug quantity ratio. Any comprehensive solution to the 100-to-1 drug quantity ratio would require appropriate legislative action by Congress.

The text of the Commission’s amendments and its accompanying 2007 report to Congress, Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy, will be available in the coming weeks on the Commission’s website, www.ussc.gov.

This is HUGE news, and pretty encouraging for those long hopeful for significant reforms to the crack guidelines.  And yet, even if/when these amendments become official, there is still a significant crack-powder disparity.  However, the language used in the official USSC press release has me optimistic that the USSC is really ready to rumble with Congress on these issues and that its May 15 report to Congress will be forceful.

Notably, FAMM already has this press release highlighting the mixed, but positive, realities of these major crack sentencing developments:

“While this incremental change is a far cry from the ‘equalization’ of crack and powder cocaine the Commission recommended in 1995, it is a long overdue first step to improving crack sentences,” said Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM).

The possible ripple effects of this fascinating USSC development on all the on-going work of all the federal sentencing players in each branch cannot be overstated.  Throughout the weekend, I plan to provide branch-by-branch commentary on how the USSC’s actions could and should be received.