WASHINGTON — The U.S. Sentencing Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to allow some 19,500 federal prison inmates, most of them black, to seek reductions in their crack-cocaine sentences.
The commission, which sets guidelines for federal prison sentences, decided to make retroactive its recent easing of recommended sentences for crack offenses.
Most of those eligible could receive no more than a two-year cut in their prison terms, but roughly 3,800 inmates could be released from prison within a year after the March 3 effective date of Tuesday’s decision. Federal judges will have the final say whether to reduce sentences.
The commissioners said the delay until March would give judges and prison officials time to deal with public safety and other issues.
The commission took note of objections raised by the Bush administration, but said there is no basis to treat convicts sentenced before the guidelines were changed differently from those sentenced after the changes.
The sentencing commission recently changed the guidelines to reduce the disparity in prison time for the two crimes. The new guidelines took effect Nov. 1.
U.S. District Judge William Sessions of Vermont, a commission member, said the vote on retroactivity will have the “most dramatic impact on African-American families.” A failure to act “may be taken by some as particularly unjust,” Sessions said before the vote.
Four of every five crack defendants is black. Most powder-cocaine convictions involve whites.
Crack sentences still harsher
Even after the change, prison terms for crack cocaine still are two to five times longer on average than sentences for powder cocaine, the result of a 20-year-old decision by Congress to treat crack more harshly.
The commission first said in 1995 that there was no evidence to support such disparate treatment.
Relatives of prison inmates filled the meeting room and applauded loudly following the 7-0 vote. But several family members and commissioners called on Congress to overhaul cocaine sentencing laws.
Several bills have been introduced to further reduce or eliminate the disparity. The Senate is expected to hold hearings on the legislation next year.
Some critical of retroactivity
Attorney General Michael Mukasey restated the administration’s opposition to retroactivity before the commission voted, a position echoed by U.S. Attorney for Colorado Troy Eid: “This decision puts violent criminals back on the streets. Making the revised guidelines for crack cocaine retroactive means that 20,000 offenders nationally will need to be resentenced.
“In the coming year alone,” Eid said, “retroactive application will result in the release back into the community of more than 2,500 additional crack dealers than would be released if the rule was not retroactive.”
In addition, the release of inmates would cause problems for communities whose probation and supervisory systems are not ready to receive crack offenders, Mukasey said.
Several commissioners said they expect judges will use their power to deny sentence reductions in some cases.
“I fully expect that a number of individuals who are a danger to the community will not in fact receive any reduction in sentence,” said commission member Michael Horowitz, a former federal prosecutor.
Tuesday’s vote follows two Supreme Court rulings Monday that upheld judges who rejected federal sentencing guidelines as too harsh and imposed more lenient prison terms, including one for crack offenses.
Blacks make up 86 percent of the inmates who might see their prison terms for crack offenses reduced after the commission approved retroactive easing.
By contrast, just over a quarter of those convicted of powder cocaine crimes last year were black.
Denver Post staff writer Felisa Cardona contributed to this report.
