Parity on drug sentencings

WHEN PRESIDENT Bush was a candidate in 1999, he was asked which Supreme Court justice he really respected. He first said Antonin Scalia. A few moments later, he added Clarence Thomas.

Hillary Clinton was asked the same question Wednesday during a visit to the Globe. The current front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination said the justices she most admires are "the ones that are currently in the minority. . . . I'm going do everything I can as president to give Ginsberg and Souter and Breyer and the others as much company as I can give them."

That was a candid and reassuring answer for those dismayed by the court, even if the best that even a two-term Clinton can probably do - given the youth of the conservative wing - is hold serve against its 5-4 majority. But on another matter of justice, one that unfairly and disproportionately jails African-Americans, Clinton remains alarmingly indecisive.

In August, I criticized her stance on the vast, two-decade gulf in sentencing for crack cocaine vs. powder cocaine. In laws founded in hysteria, it takes 100 times more powder cocaine to get the same mandatory sentence as crack. Clinton told the Trotter Group of African-American columnists, "As a matter of practical politics, you might not be able to get from where we are, from 100-to-1, to parity. But we should ought to be able to get to 10-to-1 or something that would move us in the right direction."

But there is also no justification for 10-to-1 on a scientific, medical or violent crime basis. Ten-to-1 just recycles what President Clinton proposed a decade ago. Rival candidate Joe Biden wants to eliminate the disparity. The US Sentencing Commission has a modest easing of crack sentences scheduled to take effect Nov. 1, but admits it is "only a partial solution."

In her opening remarks at the Globe, Clinton talked about "ending President Bush's war on science." Asked to expand on her reluctance to declare she will fight to end 100-to-1, even though there is no science to support the ratio, Clinton said:

"I think there is an argument, whether it's justifiable or not, that because on balance crack cocaine is usually much cheaper than powdered cocaine it is much more readily available and therefore it has a potentially bigger market so that people would be reluctant to go to a 1-to-1 parity. If we could get to a 1-to-1 parity, I would not stand in the way of that because obviously I think there's a strong case to be made for it. But in looking at it and talking to people who would be charged with making this decision, most of the decision makers in the Congress don't think the votes are there to get to 1-to-1."

Saying she would not "stand in the way" of 1-to-1 if the "decision makers" deliver it to her is not leadership on this issue. Even though she says there is a "strong case to be made," there was nothing in Clinton's answer to indicate she will make it as president. It is a warning sign as to how seriously Clinton would attack other assaults on the poor, regardless of color. How much attention, for instance, would she really give to reforming and fully funding No Child Left Behind?

Kara Gotsch, director of advocacy for the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice fairness think tank, said Thursday by phone, "I've met with Hillary Clinton's office. It feels like Senator Clinton understands the unfairness of the issue, but it seems she remains concerned about being politically savvy. But what is politically savvy? Supporting what science and research says what to do, or ignoring it? Ignoring the science is not politically savvy. . . . Politics got us into this mess. Politics have to get us out of it."

Crack is of course cheaper since it is a cocaine derivative. It is also much easier for local law enforcement to snap up the lowest-level urban users and sellers than kingpins and suburban users (while the majority of crack users are white, 82 percent of crack offenders are black). Clinton said, "Of course I agree with you that the criminal justice system not only in that regard but in so many others disproportionately impacts young men of color."

She can prove it by saying that the first criminal justice proposal of her administration is 1-to-1.

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.