Cracked power grab by courts

Washington Post:

The Supreme Court decided today that judges may impose lighter sentences for crack cocaine, adding its voice to a racially sensitive debate over federal guidelines that call for tougher penalties for crack than for powder cocaine.

The crack cocaine decision was one of two today in which the justices, with identical seven-member majorities, reinforced their view that federal sentencing guidelines are advisory rather than mandatory, and that judges may deviate from them so long as their decisions are reasonable.

In the crack case, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said it was reasonable for a federal judge in Virginia to impose a lower sentence than one prescribed by the guidelines because of his disagreement with the rule that imposed the same sentence for a crack dealer as for someone selling 100 times as much powder cocaine. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said the law did not allow the judge to make such a determination.

But Ginsburg wrote that "the cocaine guidelines, like all other guidelines, are advisory only" and that the "the court of appeals erred in holding the crack/powder disparity effectively mandatory."

...

The NY Times views the results as a restoration of judicial power. Wile there is an argument over the fairness of the disparity of sentences, the guidelines were put in place because judges were independently arriving at disparate sentences without the guidelines. In many cases the judges were being too lenient in the view of Congress.

The problem with the courts power grab is that it is not answerable to the public for sentences it imposes. If the public really had a problem with the different sentences for crack and powder, it could petition the Congress to make a change. What the courts have done is take that right away from the voters and give it to judges who don't have to worry about being replaced.

If judges were selected by voters as they are in some states, they would be answerable to the voters if they were letting criminal off light. In Texas, it is not uncommon for let them loose judges to be replaced at the next election.

Liberals will probably like this holding because they have less faith in the voters and they like the imperil courts, particularly if the judges are liberals.