Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> The Sentencing Project

Criminal Law

: The Sentencing Project

Read News: Justice Department Backs Plan to Eliminate Cocaine Sentencing Disparity

By The Sentencing Project

'Justice Department officials yesterday endorsed for the first time a plan that would eliminate vast sentencing disparities between possession of powdered cocaine and rock cocaine, an inequity that civil rights groups say has affected poor and minority defendants disproportionately. Lanny A. Breuer, the new chief of the criminal division, told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee that the Obama administration would support bills to equalize punishment for offenders convicted of possessing the drug in either form, fulfilling one of the president's campaign pledges. Breuer explicitly called on Congress to act this term to ‘completely eliminate' the sentencing disparity. The issue has received attention from both political parties, but until now, top law enforcement officials have not backed legislative reforms, according to drug control analysts...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Sentencing Project on April 30, 2009 (boomark / email).