Thoughtful new district court opinion adopting 1:1 crack/powder ratio
I am pleased to be able to post a new opinion from a district court that provides a thorough and thoughtful account of why the court has adopted a 1:1 ratio for crack sentence cases. Here is the openning paragraph and one key passage from US v. Gully, No. CR 08-3005-MWB (N.D. Iowa May 18, 2009):
Defendant Demetrius Darnell Gully was before the court on May 14, 2009, for sentencing on his guilty plea, without a plea agreement, to four charges of distributing less than 5 grams of crack cocaine, arising from “controlled buys” in January 2008, after a prior felony drug conviction in 2004. Three of the counts charged that the distributions occurred within 1,000 feet of a public playground or school. This “crack” case raises the following questions: (1) Whether the court has discretion to impose a 1:1 crack-to-powder ratio in sentencing; and (2) whether a 1:1 ratio is appropriate in this case. This written ruling addresses only these questions, although other matters were resolved at defendant Gully’s sentencing hearing….
[I]n this case, the prosecution offered no argument or logical reason why crack cocaine and powder cocaine should be treated differently, on the basis of the controlled substances themselves. Rather, the prosecution reiterated the policy line, which this court rejects, that different treatment of crack and powder is appropriate in this case because of this defendant’s conduct, i.e., that the crack-to-powder ratio is an appropriate proxy for other kinds of harm or criminal conduct perceived to come with crack trafficking. Again, this court believes that the appropriate course is to treat interchangeable forms of cocaine as equivalents, and to enhance punishment when additional criminal effects and use of weapons, for example, are present in a particular case.