| Court: | US Supreme court |
| Facts: | |
| Posture: | Pleaded guilty to four charges, including possession of crack with intent to distribute. Fourth Circuit Court of appeals says the sentence is unreasonable. |
| Issue: | Is a sentence outside the guidelines per se unreasonable when it is based on a disagreement with the disparity between crack and powder cocaine? |
| Holding: | Yes. |
| Rule: | These guidelines, like all others, are advisory only. |
| Reasoning: | Crack and powder cocaine are two forms of the same drug. A lot of the initial stuff that people thought was so bad about crack (i.e., the motivation for the guidelines) turns out to be based on myth. There's likely a disparate impact issue here, as well. The guidelines treat weight as the sole criterion for seriousness, so a minor crack dealer might get a harsher sentence than the serious cocaine dealer who is his supplier. Courts need to treat the guidelines as the starting point for sentencing, but having them be mandatory would produce unacceptable results. |
| Dicta: | Dissent: really we should stick to matters of law. If we do this, we open up a lot of questions whose answers are not legal in nature. |