Page 9 - Florida Sentinel 6-18-21

Supreme Court Ruling
Drug Reform Advocates Call Supreme Court Ruling On Crack Sentences 'A Shocking Loss'
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a revised fed- eral law does not allow prison inmates to seek a re- duction in their sentences for possessing small amounts of crack cocaine.
The court said the word- ing of one of the rare biparti- san achievements of the Trump administration, the First Step Act, which made sweeping changes to the criminal justice system, means that the law does not apply to low-level offenders, even though supporters said they intended it to do so.
Its decision was unani-
mous.
During the crack cocaine
epidemic of the 1980s, Con- gress passed a law providing that someone arrested for possessing a small amount of crack cocaine would receive the same sentence as some- one who possessed 100 times that amount of powder co- caine.
In 2010, Congress re- duced that disparity for fu- ture defendants, but it did not apply the change to those already convicted. The First Step Act, passed in 2018, was intended to apply the reduc- tion to people in prison, al-
lowing them to seek reduced sentences, too.
The question for the court was whether the new law ap- plied only to people con- victed of possessing larger amounts of crack cocaine or to those arrested with only a small amount as well.
The case was brought by a Florida man, Tarahrick Terry, who was sentenced to 15-and-a-half years in prison for possessing 3.9 grams of crack cocaine — about the same weight as four paper clips. His sen- tence under the old law was the same as what someone
would have received for pos- sessing nearly a pound of powder cocaine.
Terry sought to have his sentence reduced under the First Step Act, but the lower courts said the law's retroac- tivity provision applied only to two other categories of sentences for larger amounts of the drug — including one involving possession of 50 grams of crack or 5 kilo- grams of powered cocaine — and not to low-level offenses.
Lone Black Justice, Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for the court. As- sociate Justice Sonia So-
tomayor wrote a concur- ring opinion in which she agreed with most of the court's reasoning but de- scribed the outcome as "no small injustice" and encour- aged Congress to change the law to address similar situa- tions.
The Supreme Court's rul- ing means that hundreds of inmates who, like Terry, were convicted of possessing only small amounts of crack cocaine cannot seek to have their sentences reduced. Terry is scheduled to be re- leased from prison in Sep- tember.
FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2021 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY PAGE 9-A