According to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, cities across the country will soon be invaded by teeming throngs of crack-addled heathens hell-bent on infecting new users with their dangerous vice. Or at least that could happen, he told the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Jan. 24, thanks to the decision of that crazy-ass collection of bleeding hearts, otherwise known as the U.S. Sentencing Commission, to downgrade federal sentencing guidelines for crack-related offenses, and – oh the horror! — to make the sentencing revision retroactive, clearing the way for approximately 1,600 federal inmates to apply for early release from prison. “A sudden influx of criminals from federal prison into your communities could lead to a surge in new victims with a tragic but predictable result,” he said. And don’t forget, he noted, many of the inmates up for release are actually “violent gang members.”
Oh. My. God. The sky is falling – severed from the heavens by scissor-wielding crackheads!
Now, while it is true that the USSC finally took action to downgrade federal sentencing guidelines for crack offenses – after nearly 15 years of urging Congress to take action to equalize the wildly out-of-whack punishments associated with crack vs. powdered cocaine; a punishment disparity that has been demonstrably racist in application – and that the USSC subsequently voted to make the change retroactive, there is absolutely no truth to Mukasey’s wild prediction of a consequent urban chaos. Indeed, what Mukasey (himself a former federal judge) conveniently omitted from his remarks to the mayors is that current inmates for whom the retroactivity may apply must first petition the federal courts for release, and, more importantly, that in deciding whether an inmate qualifies for release the federal court must consider whether an inmate’s release would present a risk to public safety. If so, the court may decline to award early release. In other words, notes sentencing reform organizers with the advocacy group Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the USSC’s crack sentencing ruling was hardly a “get-out-of-jail-free card” for federal crack inmates. “Rather than whipping up fear about the impending release of ‘violent gang members,’ the Attorney General should be reassuring the mayors that U.S. attorneys are rolling up their sleeves and doing their jobs: reviewing sentencing records, examining criminal histories, and in cases where they think a sentencing reduction is not appropriate, making those arguments to the courts,” FAMM Vice President and general counsel Mary Price said in a press release.
Well, yeah, sure, that’s what he should be doing – but, hey, that doesn’t sound nearly as fun.
At any rate, it doesn’t seem that Mukasey’s message had much immediate effect on the Conference – after all, just last year the membership passed a resolution calling for a little less of the “war” on drugs, instead urging new approaches to address drug addiction and, notably, condemning mandatory minimums. Kevin Burns, mayor of North Miami, Fla., told Reuters that Mukasey seemed to be interested in “striking fear” with his comments. “I think [he] was possibly overstating it a bit,” he said.
This article appears in January 25 • 2008.