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 July 29, 2010 Thursday
Final Edition

SECTION: GENERAL; Pg. A-04

LENGTH: 460 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY: 

WASHINGTON - Congress yesterday changed a quarter-century-old law that has subjected tens of thousands of blacks to long prison terms for crack-cocaine convictions while giving far more lenient treatment to those, mainly whites, caught with the powder form of the drug.

The House, by voice vote, approved a bill to reduce the disparities between mandatory crack and powder cocaine sentences and sent the measure to President Barack Obama for his signature.

During his presidential campaign, Obama said the wide gap in sentencing "cannot be justified and should be eliminated."

The Senate passed the bill in March.

The measure changes a 1986 law, enacted at a time when crack-cocaine use was rampant, under which a person convicted of crack-cocaine possession gets the same mandatory prison term as someone with 100 times the same amount of powder cocaine. The legislation reduces that ratio to about 18-to-1.

The bill also eliminates the five-year mandatory minimum for first-time possession of crack. It would not apply retroactively.

Under current law, possession of 5 grams of crack triggers a mandatory minimum five-year sentence. The same mandatory sentence applies to a person convicted of trafficking 500 grams of powder cocaine. The proposed legislation would apply the five-year term to someone with 28 grams, or an ounce, of crack.

Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, cited U.S. Sentencing Commission estimates that almost 3,000 people a year subjected to the mandatory sentence would be affected by the change. The average sentence in these cases would be reduced from 106 months to 79 months.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., the main sponsor of the Senate bill with Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said that last year close to 1,500 people were convicted for possession of somewhere between 5 and 25 grams of crack cocaine, which subjected them to mandatory minimum sentences. Some 80 percent of those convicted of crack-cocaine offenses are black.

In the 2008 campaign, Obama said the sentencing disparity "has disproportionately filled our prisons with young black and Latino drug users." He cited figures that blacks serve almost as much time for drug offenses - 58.7 months - as whites do for violent offenses - 61.7 months.

Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, was the only lawmaker to speak against the bill. "Why do we want to risk another surge of addiction and violence by reducing penalties?" he asked.

Rep. Robert C. Scott, D-3rd, noted that the bill also requires the sentencing commission to increase significantly penalties for drug violations involving violence. "This way, the defendant is sentenced for what he or she actually did, not the form of cocaine involved," he said.

LOAD-DATE: July 30, 2010