Fixing Cocaine Sentencing Laws

By Kara Gotsch

This month the Supreme Court heard a case which touched on a 20-year-old controversy involving justice and crack cocaine. The court will rule early next year in Kimbrough v. United States whether a federal district judge’s more lenient sentencing decision, based on his disagreement with policy that punishes crimes involving crack cocaine more harshly than those involving powder cocaine, is reasonable. The case will help judges determine their ability to sentence below an advisory guideline range. Unfortunately, the outcome will leave in place the excessive mandatory penalties that the Kimbrough judge found unjust.

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