Sentencing disparities topic of town hall meeting

Birmingham will be the site Saturday of a town hall meeting that focuses on sentencing disparities in federal cases involving crack cocaine and powdered cocaine.

The American Civil Liberties Union is hosting the meeting, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. at Church of the Reconciler, 112 14th St. North. Among those invited to speak are Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission recently urged Congress to revise federal penalties for cocaine convictions. Current federal law requires a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for people possessing 500 grams of powder cocaine but only 5 grams of crack cocaine.

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The commission, an independent agency set up in 1985 to develop a national sentencing policy for federal courts, said the "100-to-1 quantity ratio" cannot be justified, although research and public policy may support higher penalties for crack than for powder cocaine.

Crack is the cooked form of powder cocaine and is considered a cheaper, quicker, more addictive high. Congress passed the tougher penalties on crack during the drug's deadly sweep of American cities during the 1980s.

Sessions has introduced a bill to decrease the amount of powder and increase the amount of crack that trigger the mandatory sentences, dropping the disparity to 20:1. For example, the legislation would apply the 10-year sentence for powder at 4,000 grams and crack at 200 grams.

Deborah Vagins, policy counsel for civil rights in the ACLU's Washington Legislative Office, said the current law discriminates against black offenders by punishing those caught with crack cocaine more severely than those caught with the drug in powder form. The sentencing commission said black defendants account for about 90 percent of all offenders sentenced under the harsher penalties.

The Justice Department and leaders in Congress, which in 1995 rejected an effort to equalize crack and powder punishments, insist the crimes are different and that crack is associated with more violent trafficking. Federal prosecutors in Birmingham declined comment.

Vagins said the 2006 ACLU report has found no medical or legal justification for the sentencing disparity.

Eric Sterling was counsel to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary 1979-89 and participated in the passage of the mandatory minimum sentencing. He said the law needs to be reworked to emphasize tough sentences targeting international drug distributors.

Sterling, now president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in Washington, said, "The federal government should not be doing retail drug cases."

E-mail: vwalton@bhamnews.com