Law professor outlines implication of "crack cocaine" Supreme Court decision

As you may know, back in December, The Supreme Court said judges may impose shorter prison terms for crack cocaine crimes, enhancing judicial discretion to reduce the disparity between sentences for crack and cocaine powder. I thought you might be interested in some preliminary thoughts from Katherine Darmer, a professor and criminal procedure expert at Chapman University’s School of Law:

1. This decision is a natrual outgrowth of the Court's prior decision holding that the sentencing guidelines are "advisory" rather than mandatory. In the Booker case, the Court actually held that the guidelines are unconstitutional if they are viewed as "mandatory."

2. The case-- as others in this line -- bring togtether interesting bedfellows, e.g., conservative Scalia and liberal Stevens.
Both have viewed the sentencing guidelines as unconstitutional if mandatory. Their alliance continues in this latest case.

3. The crack/cocaine sentencing disparity has been a political hot potato for years. Crack has been punished 100 times more severely than cocaine, a largely politically driven decision that has plagued judges for years when they were forced to apply the differentials under the old, mandatory guidelines.

4. This defendant --a veteran -- is particularly sympathetic. Even those "tough on crime" who may normally FAVOR harsher sentences for crack are likely to find his case compelling. It was a brilliant "test case" for this issue.

Below is Prof. Darmer’s bio.

Professor Katherine Darmer specializes in criminal procedure. Before joining the full-time faculty at Chapman in 2000, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where she prosecuted public corruption, violent gang and narcotics cases. In 1998, she served as lead counsel in a three-month criminal RICO trial that resulted in the conviction of numerous Bronx-based gang members of crimes ranging from murder to narcotics distribution. During her tenure as an AUSA, she also argued seven cases in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Professor Darmer received her A.B. from Princeton University, with high honors, and her Juris Doctor from Columbia University, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar for two years and served as Articles Editor of the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law. She then clerked for the Honorable Kimba M. Wood in the Southern District of New York and the Honorable William H. Timbers on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Following her clerkships and before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, she worked for three years as a litigation associate at the Manhattan law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell. While at Davis Polk, she was a member of the trial team that successfully defended Delta Air Lines in a $2.5 billion lawsuit brought by the Pan Am Corporation and the Pan Am Creditor's Committee. In 2003, Professor Darmer was co-editor of the book Civil Liberties vs. National Security in a Post-9/11 World, which is the text used in her Advanced Criminal Procedure seminar. Her co-edited book, Morality and the Law, is forthcoming in 2007. Professor Darmer’s other scholarship has focused primarily on Fifth Amendment and national security issues.