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.
The case of Derrick Kimbrough stems from his 2005 guilty plea in Virginia for possession with intent to distribute 56 grams of crack cocaine and possession of a firearm. Kimbrough, a Desert Storm veteran with no previous felony convictions, was prosecuted in federal court where penalties involving crack cocaine are harsher than in state systems. As a result, instead of receiving a sentence of about 10 years under Virginia law, he faced a federal sentencing guideline range between 19 and 22 years.
Federal District Judge Raymond A. Jackson, who presided over Kimbrough’s case, called the recommended guideline sentence “ridiculous” and instead sentenced Kimbrough to 15 years, the minimum required by mandatory sentencing laws.