From Blotter Paper to Crack: Sentencing Disparities, Weights and Substances
May 3rd, 2007 Posted by: Dr. Cox
I’ve only just started going through the transcript of the oral argument in Kimbrough, the case the Supreme Court heard today on the crack-powder sentencing disparity, but I think it’s interesting that the 1996 case of Neal v. United States is coming up again and again as a point of reference.
Neal concerned the federal sentencing scheme around LSD, and specifically the use of blotter paper weight to calculate the amount of LSD a person possessed.
In today’s case, Justice Stevens suggests that he thinks Kimbrough may be “controlled by the decision in Neal,” while Justice Souter describes one argument as a way of saying “well, in the LSD case, you approved of incoherence and irrationality, therefore, you want to do it across the board.”
More when there’s more time…