Hey, what do you know? The Supreme Court kind of actually gets it with regard to the disparities in cocaine sentencing laws:
The Supreme Court on Monday 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.
By a 7-2 vote, the court said that a 15-year sentence given to Derrick Kimbrough, a black veteran of the 1991 war with Iraq, was acceptable, even though federal sentencing guidelines called for Kimbrough to receive 19 to 22 years.
"In making that determination, the judge may consider the disparity between the guidelines' treatment of crack and powder cocaine offenses," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her majority opinion.
In other news, the skies above Washington, D.C., opened up with glorious rainbows, unicorns appeared on the White House lawn prancing and flitting about, and the ghost of Benjamin Franklin was seen smoking a pipe as he strolled down the sidewalk next to the Reflecting Pool, muttering to no one in particular, "It's about God damn time."
