{"id":7208,"date":"2013-12-19T16:41:03","date_gmt":"2013-12-19T21:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/?p=7208"},"modified":"2016-11-16T19:51:50","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T00:51:50","slug":"pardons-all-around-crack-cocaine-to-white-collar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/pardons-all-around-crack-cocaine-to-white-collar\/","title":{"rendered":"Pardons All Around: Crack Cocaine to White Collar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/www.justice.gov\/dea\/pr\/multimedia-library\/image-gallery\/cocaine\/crack_cocaine6.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"109\" height=\"73\" \/><span><font face=\"Times New Roman\" size=\"3\"><br \/>\nToday, the internet was <a title=\"Obama Commutes 8 Sentences\" href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2013\/12\/barack-obama-commutes-drug-sentences-101343.html?hp=f1\" target=\"_blank\">abuzz<\/a> with the news of President Obama commuting the sentences of eight convicted criminals. Their crimes? Nonviolent crack cocaine offenses. Each prisoner had already served time of over fifteen years, and six of the eight prisoners were carrying out life sentences. In a statement, President Obama called the commutations a \u201cstep toward restoring fundamental ideals of justice and fairness.\u201d After all, the offenders were sentenced prior to the <a title=\"Fair Sentencing Act\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/fair-sentencing-act\">2010 Fair Sentencing Act<\/a> and were casualties of a grossly disproportionate sentencing regime. Under this previous regime, the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine was 100:1. Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming majority of people arrested for crack cocaine offenses were African Americans.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>While it remains to be seen how these commuted sentences will be received, it is not hard to see the writing on the wall (just read the comments section of any of today\u2019s articles). When the banks that brought the financial sector crumbling to its knees were given a pass (or a deferred prosecution agreement), we shrugged our shoulders and reasoned that banks are \u201c<a title=\"NYT Editorial: Too Big to Indict\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/12\/12\/opinion\/hsbc-too-big-to-indict.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">too big to indict<\/a>.\u201d However, when our President attempts to retroactively apply the new sentencing regime and correct an injustice, we want to pump the brakes.<\/p>\n<p>Not everyone deserves a second chance, it seems.<\/p>\n<p><em>[photo by justice.gov]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, the internet was abuzz with the news of President Obama commuting the sentences of eight convicted criminals. Their crimes? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":7216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,45],"tags":[862,440],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-7208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amicus","category-criminal-justice","tag-criminal-justice","tag-race"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/80\/2013\/12\/crack_cocaine6.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZrWS-1Sg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7208"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}