May 28, 2009
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) would like to thank the United States
Sentencing Commission for this opportunity to help the Commission formulate
recommendations to Congress regarding changes in federal sentencing law. Today, we
commend the Commission for its past extensive efforts calling on Congress to amend statutes
creating the unjust disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentencing. We wholeheartedly
agree with this body’s 2004 conclusion that “[r]evising the crack cocaine thresholds” would do
more to reduce the sentencing gap “than any other single policy change, and it would
dramatically improve the fairness of the federal sentencing system.”1 Moreover, we commend
the Commission for the 2007 retroactive amendments making the Guidelines more consistent
with statutory mandatory minimums, and creating eligibility for approximately 19,500 prisoners
to be properly re-sentenced in accordance with the law. We hope that this body will continue to
champion and recommend change—specifically, we urge the Commission to remind Congress of
the continued, urgent need to amend a sentencing scheme which unjustifiably metes out
disparately harsh punishments to African Americans in violation of basic fairness.
