Shocking Dashcam Footage! Officer being shot by criminal illegal immigrant
Crack dealers gone wild!
Posted on 10. Dec, 2007 by Derek Bargeld in Race, Top Stories
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. judges can impose lighter prison sentences than federal guidelines specify, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in cases involving crack cocaine and ecstacy that could add pressure to overhaul sentencing practices.
In a racially sensitive issue, the justices overturned a U.S. appeals court ruling that judges cannot hand down a lighter punishment simply because they disagree with wide disparities for crack and powder cocaine sentences.
Blacks account for about 80 percent of the federal crack cocaine convictions. The guidelines call for lighter prison terms for the sale of powder cocaine, a drug more popular with whites and Hispanics.
In a related ruling, the court also supported the right of judges to depart from sentencing guidelines in a case involving distribution of the drug ecstasy.
Both rulings were by 7-2 margins — decisive votes by a court often ideologically split on major issues.
But dissenting Justice Samuel Alito argued that the rulings, which significantly broaden a judge’s sentencing flexibility, could make sentence disparities wider, not narrower.
The decisions come a day before the agency that sets guidelines for federal sentences is to vote on whether to make retroactive a reduction in recommended crack-cocaine penalties.
There is also pressure in Congress to revise a 1986 law mandating longer sentences for crack, which is considered more addictive than powder cocaine and a source of street violence.
“The decision particularly comes at such a strategic time,” said Kara Gotsch, advocacy director at the Sentencing Project. “The momentum (for change) is unprecedented,” she said. MORE>>>
Why not make the sentences equal for all drug dealing offences? A swift execution, regardless of rock, powder, or pill.
“Why not make the sentences equal for all drug dealing offences? A swift execution, regardless of rock, powder, or pill. ”
The point you raise is right on the money. Take note that they don’t want to raise the penalty for cocaine but lower it for Black..er, I mean Crack.
If they were to put tracking devices on these people and put restrictions on them that required them to stay in black neighborhoods only I’d say go for it let them all out. If blacks want to fuck-up their own neighborhoods let them. But we all know that innocent White people will pay a price for this crap.