REFORMING CRACK & POWDER COCAINE SENTENCING: Making Sense of the USSC Guideline Amendment and Report to Congress

May 19, 2007

REFORMING CRACK & POWDER COCAINE SENTENCING:
Making Sense of the USSC Guideline Amendment and Report to Congress

May 21, 2007
9:00 am at B340 Rayburn House Office Building
2:00 pm at 485 Russell Senate Office Building

REFORMING CRACK & POWDER COCAINE SENTENCING: Making Sense of the USSC Guideline Amendment and Report to Congress

featuring

Lisa Rich, United States Sentencing Commission
Pat Nolan, Prison Fellowship
Hilary Shelton (Invited), NAACP Washington Office

Moderated by Marc Mauer, The Sentencing Project
& Jesselyn McCurdy, ACLU

On May 15, the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) updated its 2002 Report to Congress on Federal Cocaine Sentencing. The USSC report once again finds that there is no rationale for the sentencing differences between the two forms of the drug. Under current law, possessing or selling 5 grams of crack cocaine results in the same five-year mandatory minimum sentence as selling 500 grams of powder cocaine. The law harshly punishes low-level offenders, and has had a disparate impact on African-American and low-income communities. Please RSVP to Vee Campbell by May 18 at vcampbell@osi-dc.org or phone (202) 721-5649