Today's Date: March 28, 2024
UC Berkeley FHL Vive Center Teams Up with BeamNG   •   More $10-a-day child care spaces   •   Key Piece of “Titanic” Movie Memorabilia Purchased By Titanic Museum Attraction   •   Pushing Policy: Women Uniting for Legislative Change; Four Trailblazing women at the forefront of the Quad Caucus   •   Impact Communications Signs Best-Selling Book Author and Financial Advisor Coach Derrick Kinney   •   Bill Introduced in Minnesota Would Increase Access To Genetic Testing   •   University of Phoenix Receives Arizona Veteran Supportive Campus Recertification   •   Scotiabank ranks on The Globe and Mail's annual Women Lead Here benchmark of executive gender diversity for the fourth consecuti   •   PMI Foods Gives Easter Donation of 15,000 Pounds of Prime Rib to New Life Church in Arkansas   •   Gale Primary Sources Release Four New Archives Devoted to Contributions from Underrecognized Communities   •   Dawson-Forté Cashmere Shareholders Sell Majority Equity Stake to Tempus Partners   •   Impacts of Extreme Weather on Interior Design Examined in New Research   •   RICE Announces Strategic Leadership Additions, Cementing Its Role as the Nation's Largest Entrepreneurial Hub   •   Paralyzed Veterans of America to honor former Senator Elizabeth Dole with 2024 Gordon H. Mansfield Congressional Leadership Awar   •   Argonne-Supported Critical Materials Assessment Tags Potential Supply Chain Bottlenecks   •   JAMS Diversity Fellowship Accepting Applications   •   Consolidated Credit Launches Free Webinar Series to Empower Individuals During Challenging Economic Climate   •   80 M/other Artists Converge for MICAfest 2024 in Northampton, MA this May   •   New Report Shows Massachusetts Customers Could Have Saved Hundreds of Millions in 2024 Through Competitive Energy Supply   •   Chevron Announces Opening of Fab Labs at HBCUs
Bookmark and Share

ACLU Advocates For Abolition Of Mandatory Minimum Sentencing



WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union testified before the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC) that mandatory minimums should be abolished or reformed because they generate unnecessarily harsh sentences, tie judges’ hands in considering individual circumstances, create racial disparities in sentencing and empower prosecutors to force defendants to bargain away their constitutional rights. Congress has mandated that the USSC provide a report on mandatory minimums by October 2010. ACLU Drug Law Reform Project Director Jay Rorty urged the commission to reaffirm its long stated position that mandatory minimums should be abolished and asked the commission to take steps independent of Congress to mitigate the harms of existing mandatory minimum sentences.

The Sentencing Commission was created by Congress to draft a sentencing guideline scheme to bring uniformity to federal sentencing. The commission’s guidelines were mandatory until the Supreme Court held in 2005 that a mandatory scheme violated the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial and made the guidelines advisory. Mandatory minimums are enacted by Congress and place limits on the power of federal judges to reduce sentences below the levels set by Congress.

“Mandatory minimum sentences defeat the purposes of sentencing, create unwarranted racial disparity and over-crowd our prison system. They take discretion away from judges and give it to prosecutors who use these high sentences to frustrate constitutional rights,” said Rorty in his testimony today.

In 1991, the USSC delivered a report to Congress denouncing mandatory minimums and calling for their abolition. The report gathered widespread support from policymakers, judges and practitioners in the field of federal sentencing. But in the years since the report, Congress increased the number and length of mandatory minimum sentences.

The commission has historically set penalties at or above the levels dictated by Congress. The ACLU asked the USSC to assess the true harms of drug and other offenses carrying mandatory minimums and establish penalties that reflect a rational assessment of individual harms.

“We cannot continue to use a one-size-fits-all approach to sentencing. Instead, we must balance public safety with the need to assist individuals on the path to health and rehabilitation,” Rorty continued. “The commission is an expert body and can employ its knowledge and resources to craft fair and effective sentences. The commission should tell Congress to abolish the mandatory minimum sentencing structure and rely on the advisory guidelines to set policy.”

One mandatory minimum that Congress is poised to revise is that governing crack cocaine offenses. The law, which penalizes five grams of crack as harshly as 500 grams of cocaine, has been denounced by the ACLU, congressional leaders and the Obama Administration as racially unfair. The Fair Sentencing Act, which reduces the 100:1 crack-powder ratio to 18:1, has passed the Senate and is awaiting action in the House. The bill also eliminates the mandatory minimum for simple possession.

"Federal mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine have been a stain on our justice system for nearly 20 years,” said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “The Fair Sentencing Act will allow Congress to take decisive action for the first time in reworking a mandatory minimum statute. Though the bill leaves a hefty and unnecessary disparity, it is a significant first step in the fight to equalize punishment for the same drug. Congress cannot miss this historic opportunity to bring about real and much-needed change for all Americans."

To read the ACLU’s statement, go to: www.aclu.org/drug-law-reform/aclu-statement-us-sentencing-commisssion-hearing-statutory-mandatory-minimum-penalti

 


American Civil Liberties Union, 125 Broad Street 18th Floor, New York, NY 10004-2400 United States



Back to top
| Back to home page
Video

White House Live Stream
LIVE VIDEO EVERY SATURDAY
alsharpton Rev. Al Sharpton
9 to 11 am EST
jjackson Rev. Jesse Jackson
10 to noon CST


Video

LIVE BROADCASTS
Sounds Make the News ®
WAOK-Urban
Atlanta - WAOK-Urban
KPFA-Progressive
Berkley / San Francisco - KPFA-Progressive
WVON-Urban
Chicago - WVON-Urban
KJLH - Urban
Los Angeles - KJLH - Urban
WKDM-Mandarin Chinese
New York - WKDM-Mandarin Chinese
WADO-Spanish
New York - WADO-Spanish
WBAI - Progressive
New York - WBAI - Progressive
WOL-Urban
Washington - WOL-Urban

Listen to United Natiosns News