Under a new law that amends the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, crack cocaine criminals are to get more lenient sentences. After over twenty years of criticism, the law, which has largely hurt African Americans, is to decrease the disparity between crack cocaine sentencing and powder cocaine sentencing from a 100:1 ratio to a 20:1 ratio. Approximately 20,000 crack convicts nationwide are to be affected by the new change, but not all petitioners have been granted legal council.
While the Central District of California is making sure each individual affected by the change in law knows about their rights, other districts are less generous in affording legal council. District Judges, who are the only authority for granting a defense attorney to convicts, are saying ‘no’ to some or all of their petitioners. They feel that a retrial or reconsideration of the case is so straightforward that legal council for the defense is not required. Instead, convicts with minimal education are left to argue their own cases against prosecution attorney with long and meticulous briefs. While the government automatically has the right to counsel, some convicts are being denied their own right to defenders in cases that can take years off their sentences.
Opposition to the new decrease in sentences for crack cocaine convicts is coming from the Bush Administration, which claims that the law will allow for “violent criminals” to escape onto the streets, while in reality, the law first allows for retrial and new sentencing at the discretion of certified judges—which in most cases can merely shorten, not eliminate sentencing. This comment can indicate nothing other than distrust of the judicial system. These "violent criminals" are indeed not violent at all, they are just victims of a law that has had unfair consequences, a law which many legal experts have been calling racist for years.
No comments:
Post a Comment