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A counsel(-less) perspective on crack retroactivity

By Douglas A. Berman

This news article, headlined "Failure emerges in call for shorter crack sentences: Many inmates are not given lawyers," reports on an interesting (and troublesomely disparate) aspect of the implementation of the USSC new crack guidelines: As federal courts begin deciding whether thousands of prisoners should receive shorter crack cocaine sentences, some judges are telling convicts that they won't get lawyers to help them argue for leniency.  As a result, some prisoners are being left to argue on their own against skilled prosecutors, raising questions about fairness in cases that already have been widely perceived as unjust. The recalculations come after a 20-year debate over racial disparities in cocaine sentences.  Most crack cocaine defendants are black; most powder cocaine defendants are white and receive much less severe sentences...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 22, 2008 (boomark / email).