Obama signs bill reducing cocaine sentencing gap

[bud.lightyear]

hope this isn't already up here somewehre....feel free to remove if it is.

author: cnn wire staff
date: august 3, 2010
source: cnn, http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/08/03/fair.sentencing/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn#fbid=v7WAqtJDfd3

Washington (CNN) -- President Obama signed a bill Tuesday reducing the disparity in penalties for the use of crack and powder cocaine, according to the White House.

The enactment of the law seals a hard-fought victory for civil rights activists who have argued for years that the differing punishments unfairly target African-Americans.

The Fair Sentencing Act repeals a five-year mandatory sentence for first time offenders, and for repeat offenders with less than 28 grams of crack cocaine. The old law set the mandatory sentence for conviction at five grams.

 

[seep]

Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, recently contended that the new law will reduce sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1.

Gee thanks

 

[phr]

Yeah. Any thing but 1:1 is disappointing.

 

[Bardeaux]

^This is true. But it's still a step forward

 

[Moredopamine]

"Good news! We'll only punish you eighteen times as unfairly now!!"

 

[caseface99]

Finally Obama does something right..