WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court called Monday for a retreat from the strict national sentencing guidelines set during the "war on drugs" of the 1980s, ruling that federal judges may set prison terms well below those recommendations.
Judges should be freer to impose a punishment that fits the criminal and the crime, the justices said in a pair of 7-2 decisions.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, December 12, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 49 words Type of Material: Correction
Sentencing guidelines: A headline on a Section A article in some editions Tuesday misstated the scope of two Supreme Court decisions. It said justices objected to federal sentencing guidelines that had led to disparities in cocaine- and gun-related cases. The objection was to guidelines that applied to cocaine cases.
The court's call for a return to more individualized sentences will have its greatest impact in drug cases, but it will affect other federal crimes. "This ruling will have enormous impact in a whole host of white-collar cases," said Paul D. Kamenar, counsel for the Washington Legal Foundation.
In one case decided Monday, the court upheld probation for Brian Gall, an Arizona man who had admitted selling Ecstasy several years ago when he was in college in Iowa. The sentencing guidelines called for about three years in prison.
In the second case, the justices upheld a 15-year prison term for Derrick Kimbrough, a Gulf War veteran from Norfolk, Va., who was arrested after a gun and crack cocaine were found in his car. The federal recommendations called for a prison sentence of 19 to 22 years.
In both cases, Bush administration lawyers had argued for the longer prison terms and said judges should be required to follow the sentencing guidelines.
The Supreme Court disagreed, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissenting.
The court's terse opinions rejected a key tenet of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which sought to bring about consistent punishment for federal crimes, regardless of where they occurred, by taking much judicial latitude.
Sentencing guidelines were supposed to ensure, for example, that a first-time bank robber who carried a gun would receive roughly the same prison term whether he came before a judge in Los Angeles or Louisiana.
The law also set up the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which laid out detailed guidelines that prescribed a narrow range of prison terms for particular offenses. For certain crimes, judges were bound by mandatory minimum sentences but could ratchet them up based on additional factors.
Federal judges chafed at the rules. They said that their hands were tied and that they were sometimes forced to impose harsh and unfair sentences. Over time, their complaints gained traction.
