Let federal judges judge

For decades, civil libertarians have held up the federal sentencing scheme for crack cocaine crimes as unjust, if not racially biased. Guidelines for crack cocaine offenses have been far more harsh than for powder cocaine crimes.

Powder cocaine is favored by white and middle-class users, while more than 80 percent of federal defendants sentenced in crack cocaine cases are black. However, sentences for crack offenses have been three to six times longer than powder offenses involving equal amounts of the drugs.

Earlier this week, this miscarriage of justice was rectified. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that federal judges may deviate from strict sentencing guidelines developed during the 1980s' "war on drugs." The next day, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to retroactively reduce the penalties for using and selling crack cocaine. The vote could affect some 19,500 federal prisoners serving time. Some inmates could be released as soon as March.

These events are unprecedented and speak to the hysteria under which the disparity between crack and powder cocaine penalties were established in the first place. Although these substances are chemically similar, many members of Congress perceived that drug abuse in general, but crack cocaine in particular, was a problem of "overwhelming dimensions," according to the opinion in the Kimbrough case. Crack was believed to be different than powder cocaine in that it was highly addictive; crack dealers and users were more prone to violence than dealers of other drugs; crack cocaine was more harmful to users than powder cocaine, particularly to children whose mothers used crack during pregnancy; and crack's low cost and potency were making it increasingly popular.

In 2002, the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that the epidemic of crack cocaine use by youths never materialized to the extent feared. Moreover, the negative effects of prenatal crack cocaine exposure were identical to that of powder cocaine. The commission also found that there had been significantly less trafficking-related violence with crack than previously assumed.

Yet another five years would pass before the sentencing disparity would be rectified.

We hope these Supreme Court opinions and the vote of the Sentencing Commission will spur Congress to take another look at mandatory minimum sentences, which are also unjust in certain cases and fall short of the public safety assurances offered by their supporters. Justice would be better served by giving federal judges the latitude to judge.