DrugPolicyCases.com | |||
|
Authors ›› Kennedy
The constitutional limitations we enforce in this case apply to real property in general, not simply to residences. That said, the case before us well illustrates an essential principle: Individual freedom finds tangible expression in property rights. At stake in this and many other forfeiture cases are the security and privacy of the home and those who take shelter within it.
[...]
Although the mandatory-minimum statute and the Guidelines both turn upon drug quantities, the Commission itself has noted that mandatory minimums are both structurally and functionally at odds with sentencing guidelines and the goals the guidelines seek to achieve." United States Sentencing Commission, Special Report to Congress: Mandatory Minimum Penalties in the Federal Criminal Justice System 26 (Aug. 1991).
"The sentencing guidelines system is essentially a system of finely calibrated sentences. For example, as the quantity of drugs increases, there is a proportional increase in the sentence. In marked contrast, the mandatory minimums are essentially a flat, tariff-like approach to sentencing. Whereas guidelines seek a smooth continuum, mandatory minimums result in 'cliffs.' The 'cliffs' that result from mandatory minimums compromise proportionality, a fundamental premise for just punishment, and a primary goal of the Sentencing Reform Act." Id., at iii. [...]
Entrusted within its sphere to make policy judgments, the Commission may abandon its old methods in favor of what it has deemed a more desirable "approach" to calculating LSD quantities ... We, however, do not have the same latitude to forsake prior interpretations of a statute. True, there may be little in logic to defend the statute's treatment of LSD; it results in significant disparity of punishment meted out to LSD offenders relative to other narcotics traffickers. (Although the number of doses petitioner sold seems high, the quantities of other narcotics a defendant would have to sell to receive a comparable sentence under the statute yield far more doses, see United States v. Marshall, 908 F.2d 1312, 1334 (CA7 1990) (Posner, J., dissenting), aff'd sub nom. Chapman v. United States, 500 U.S. 453, 114 L. Ed. 2d 524, 111 S. Ct. 1919 (1991).) Even so, Congress, not this Court, has the responsibility for revising its statutes. Were we to alter our statutory interpretations from case to case, Congress would have less reason to exercise its responsibility to correct statutes that are thought to be unwise or unfair.
[...]
|
|