President Obama Cites Cocaine Law Disparity in Commuting Sentences

Story by Bloomberg
Written by Joe Sobczyk

President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of eight people convicted and sentenced on crack cocaine offenses, saying their prison terms were too long as a result of disparities in the law.

Each of the eight men and women has served more than 15 years in federal prison. President Obama cited the differences in sentences between crack and powder cocaine offenses, which has been reduced under the Fair Sentencing Act that he signed three years ago.

“If they had been sentenced under the current law, many of them would have already served their time and paid their debt to society,” the President said in a statement. “Instead, because of a disparity in the law that is now recognized as unjust, they remain in prison, separated from their families and their communities, at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars each year.”

The President also granted pardons to 13 people who already served terms for drug-related convictions.

President Obama in 2010 signed legislation narrowing the sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. While African-Americans accounted for 30 percent of crack use, they made up 82 percent of the convictions, the US Justice Department said.

“When one looks at the racial implications of the crack-powder disparity, it has bred disrespect for our criminal justice system,” Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in June 2009.

The Attorney General later told the U.S. Sentencing Commission that the revised sentencing policies should be retroactive. The President's administration is also pursuing less-harsh sentences for some non-violent drug offenders, a concept also supported by Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, and other lawmakers.