The End of the “War”? Sentencing in Drug Cases in the Wake of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 by Monica Harris
For decades the Federal Sentencing Guidelines have subjected defendants in drug cases to drastically different sentences depending on whether their offenses involved crack or powder cocaine. Any cursory study of the “War on Drugs” reveals that crack cocaine is much more likely to be used by minority populations, or in low-income areas. Conversely, powder cocaine is more often used in middle class communities.[1] The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and Federal Sentencing Guidelines proscribe that district judges should use a 100:1 ratio for the amount of powder cocaine compared to crack that is required to trigger a mandatory minimum sentence.[2] The practical implication of this law has been that powder cocaine users receive drastically lower sentences. For example, in United States v. Corner, the Seventh Circuit refused to reconsider the sentence of a defendant in a crack cocaine case.[3] The crack defendant had been sentenced to 188 to 235 months where he would have only been sentenced to 151 to188 months had his offense involved powder cocaine.[4] This case does not even present the most egregious example, because the defendant in Corner was a career offender. In some federal circuits, career offenders are not able to be relieved from mandatory [read more]