Washington – A judge who served as a top drug-policy adviser to the elder President Bush and advocated harsh penalties for crack-cocaine crimes said Tuesday that the policy was too strict and undermined faith in the judicial system.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton told the U.S. Sentencing Commission that federal laws requiring dramatically longer sentences for crack cocaine than for cocaine powder were “unconscionable” and contributed to the perception within minority communities that courts are unfair.
“I never thought that the disparity should be as severe as it has become,” said Walton, who sits on the bench in Washington, where he previously served as a Superior Court judge, a federal prosecutor and a deputy drug czar.
Currently, trafficking in 5 grams of crack cocaine carries a mandatory five-year prison term, but it takes 500 grams of cocaine powder to warrant the same sentence. Advocates for changing the law point to statistics showing crack is more of an inner-city drug while cocaine powder is used more often in the suburbs.
