Report to the Congress: Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy (2002)
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Report to the Congress: COCAINE AND FEDERAL SENTENCING POLICY UNITED STATES SENTENCING COMMISSION May 2002 COCAINE AND FEDERAL SENTENCING POLICY Diana E. Murphy Chair Ruben Castillo Vice Chair William K. Sessions, III Vice Chair John R. Steer Vice Chair Sterling Johnson, Jr. Commissioner Joe Kendall Commissioner Michael E. O’Neill Commissioner John P. Elwood* (ex officio) Edward F. Reilly, Jr. (ex officio) * As of May 6, 2002, the Attorney General’s designee as the ex officio for the U.S. Department of Justice is Mr. Eric Jaso. TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..................................................... iv Chapter 1 BACKGROUND ..............................................................1 A. INTRODUCTION ..........................................................1 B. CURRENT PENALTY STRUCTURE FOR FEDERAL COCAINE OFFENSES .................4 1. Two-Tiered Penalties for “Serious” and “Major” Traffickers ................5 2. Specific Congressional Concerns About Crack Cocaine ....................7 3. Commission Response to the 1986 Act ................................10 4. Simple Possession of Crack Cocaine..................................11 C. RECENT ACTION CONCERNING FEDERAL COCAINE SENTENCING POLICY ............12 D. METHODOLOGY ........................................................14 Chapter 2 FORMS OF COCAINE, METHODS OF USE, EFFECTS, AND DEPENDENCY .........16 A. POWDER COCAINE AND CRACK COCAINE MANUFACTURING, PURITY, AND DOSES ....16 B. COCAINE’S EFFECTS, ADDICTIVENESS, AND METHODS OF ADMINISTRATION .........17 Chapter 3 THE EFFECTS OF PRENATAL COCAINE EXPOSURE ............................21 A. INTRODUCTION ........................................................21 B. DIFFICULTIES ASSOCIATED WITH DRUG RESEARCH .............................23 C. EFFECTS AT BIRTH ......................................................25 D. LONG-TERM EFFECTS ....................................................27 E. PRENATAL EXPOSURE TO OTHER SUBSTANCES ................................29 Chapter 4 ANALYSIS OF UNITED STATES SENTENCING COMMISSION DRUG DATA ........32 A. INTRODUCTION .........................................................32 B. BACKGROUND. .........................................................32 C. OFFENSE CHARACTERISTIC TRENDS .........................................36 1. Offender Function ................................................36 2. Geographic Scope of Activity.......................................40 3. Drug Quantity ...................................................44 4. Guideline Role Adjustments ........................................50 5. Other Aggravating Factors..........................................52 D. OTHER SENTENCING GUIDELINE FACTORS ....................................58 1. Criminal History .................................................58 2. Safety Valve.....................................................60 3. Departures ......................................................60 i Chapter 5 DEMOGRAPHICS OF FEDERAL COCAINE OFFENDERS .........................62 Chapter 6 TRENDS IN DRUG PRICE AND USE ...........................................64 A. INTRODUCTION .........................................................64 B. COCAINE PRICES AND PENALTIES ..........................................65 C. CRACK AND POWDER COCAINE USE ........................................67 D. CONCLUSION ..........................................................72 Chapter 7 STATE SENTENCING POLICY AND PROSECUTORIAL DECISIONS ................73 A. STATE COCAINE SENTENCING POLICIES ......................................73 1. Alabama........................................................74 2. Arizona.........................................................75 3. California.......................................................75 4. Connecticut .....................................................75 5. Iowa...........................................................76 6. Maine..........................................................76 7. Maryland .......................................................76 8. Missouri........................................................76 9. New Hampshire..................................................77 10. North Dakota....................................................77 11. Ohio...........................................................77 12. Oklahoma.......................................................78 13. South Carolina...................................................78 14. Virginia ........................................................78 B. INTERACTION OF PROSECUTORIAL DECISIONS AND STATE PENALTIES ..............81 Chapter 8 FINDINGS, DISCUSSION, AND RECOMMENDATIONS ...........................90 A. OVERVIEW ............................................................90 B. FINDINGS .............................................................93 1. Current Penalties Exaggerate the Relative Harmfulness of Crack Cocaine ....93 2. Current Penalties Sweep Too Broadly and Apply Most Often to Lower Level Offenders.................................................... 97 3. Current Penalties Overstate the Seriousness of Most Crack Cocaine Offenses and Fail to Provide Adequate Proportionality ...........................100 4. Current Penalties’ Severity Mostly Impacts Minorities ..................102 C. RECOMMENDATIONS ...................................................103 1. Penalties for Crack Cocaine ........................................104 2. Penalties for Powder Cocaine ......................................110 D. CONCLUSION .........................................................112 APPENDIX ii A. Model Guideline Amendment Implementing Recommendations Set Forth in Chapter 8.................................................. A-1 B. Prison Impact of Recommendations .................................B-1 C. Data Sources and Methodology .....................................C-1 D. Summary of Written Public Comment on Cocaine Sentencing Policy ...... D-1 E. Summary of Public Hearings on Cocaine Sentencing Policy ..............E-1 iii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY INTRODUCTION This is the first of a series of reports the United States Sentencing Commission will be issuing as we approach the 15th anniversary of the effective date of the federal sentencing guidelines. The purpose of this report is to contribute to the ongoing assessment of federal cocaine sentencing policy by Congress and others in the federal criminal justice system. This report updates and supplements much of the research and data presented in the United States Sentencing Commission’s 1995 Special Report to Congress: Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy [hereinafter the 1995 Commission Report] and referred to in the Commission’s 1997 Special Report to Congress: Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy [hereinafter the 1997 Commission Report]. The Commission submits this report pursuant to both its general and statutory authority under 28 U.S.C. §§ 994-995 and its specific responsibility to advise Congress on sentencing policy under 28 U.S.C. § 995(a)(20). At the time that the Commission was developing the initial sentencing guidelines, Congress responded to a national sense of urgency surrounding drugs generally and crack cocaine specifically by enacting the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 [hereinafter the 1986 Act]. The 1986 Act created the basic framework of statutory mandatory minimum penalties currently applicable to federal drug trafficking offenses generally. (See Chapter 1.) In considering the mandatory minimum penalties for cocaine offenses, Congress differentiated between powder cocaine and crack cocaine and, concluding that crack cocaine was more dangerous, established significantly higher penalties for crack cocaine offenses. The 1986 Act implemented this differential by requiring 100 times less crack cocaine than powder cocaine to trigger five and ten-year mandatory minimum penalties. As a result of the 1986 Act, 21 U.S.C. § 841 (b)(1) provides the following penalties for a first-time cocaine trafficking offense: 5 grams or more of crack cocaine or = five-year mandatory minimum penalty 500 grams or more of powder cocaine 50 grams or more of crack cocaine or = ten-year mandatory minimum penalty 5,000 grams or more of powder cocaine The Commission responded to the 1986 Act by incorporating the statutory 100-to-1 drug quantity ratio into the sentencing guidelines and extrapolating upward and downward to effectively set sentencing guideline penalty ranges for all drug quantities. Because of the statutory and guideline differentiation between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, the sentencing guideline range based solely on drug quantity is three to over six times longer for crack cocaine offenders than powder cocaine offenders with equivalent drug quantities, depending on the exact quantity of drug involved. In great part because of the difference in quantity-based penalties, in iv 2000 the average sentence for a crack cocaine offense was 44 months longer than the average sentence for a powder cocaine offense, 118 months compared to 74 months. On May 1, 1995, by a four-to-three vote, the Commission submitted to Congress an amendment to the sentencing guidelines that, among other things, would have equalized the guideline penalties for powder cocaine and crack cocaine offenses based solely on drug quantity. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 994(p), however, Congress passed and the President signed legislation disapproving the guideline amendment. The legislation further directed the Commission to submit to Congress new