Last year, the EQUAL Act, a bill that would have decreased racial disparity in cocaine sentencing, died in the Senate. In February, the bill was reintroduced but now has been referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, the same committee where the bill stalled and died last year.
An intern waives us through security as we make our way into the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Heels clicking across the marble-tiled hallway behind me, Cynetra Freeman, founder of the Mississippi Center For Re-Entry, informs us that we’re almost late. Ushering us into the elevator, Kandia Milton, the Policy Director of Dream.Org Justice, breaks down our action plan. We are here on behalf of the thousands of people facing unjustly long sentences for possession of crack cocaine. We are here to ask Republican Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker to support the EQUAL Act.
As the only Mississippian on the Dream.Org Justice team, I have been asked to join this meeting on November 28th, 2022. Upon entering Senator Wicker’s office, we are informed that he is unable to meet with us, sending an aid instead. Unphased, Milton sits down and our conversation begins.
Senator Wicker is a sponsor of the SMART Cocaine Sentencing Act, a counter-bill to the EQUAL Act. While the EQUAL Act would do away with the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, the SMART Cocaine Sentencing Act would reduce it to a 2.5:1 ratio. While both bills pose significant reductions to the current 18:1 ratio, the conservative counter bill increased partisan division over support for the EQUAL Act.
Despite this conservative counter-legislation, the EQUAL Act was expected to pass the Senate with bipartisan support in the last few days of the congressional session. After originating in the U.S. House of Representatives, the bill had been passed to the Senate after passing with sweeping bipartisan approval. On December 16th, 2022 U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland published updated guidelines calling on federal prosecutors to “promote the equivalent treatment of crack and powder cocaine offenses". Dream.org estimated that 8,000 families were preparing to reunite with their incarcerated loved ones by the new year. But, by January 3rd, 2023, the congressional session closed, leaving the Equal Act of 2022 to die in committee.
For Orrin Jackson, like many incarcerated for crack cocaine-related crimes, the failure of the Senate to pass this legislation felt like “a slap in the face."
Jackson, once facing a life sentence, was granted release in 2018. Arrested and sentenced to life on drug and weapons charges in 1990, Jackson went through the judicial system four years after Congress established mandatory minimum sentences for drug trafficking offenses that created a 100 to 1 ratio when sentencing crack vs powder cocaine. Under that formula, a person convicted for selling 1 gram of crack cocaine would be treated the same as someone who sold 100 grams of powder cocaine.
In the case of Jackson, he was initially sentenced to ninety-eight years in prison, thirty-three of which were for possession with intent to sell 50 grams of crack cocaine. Under the 100:1 disparity, had Jackson been charged with possession of five kilograms of powder cocaine, he would have received the same sentence. For comparison, that's equivalent to ⅕ of a cup vs four liters.
Yet, just as Attorney General Merrick Garland stated in his December memo, “The crack/powder disparity in sentencing has no basis in science.” According to University of Minnesota researchers, there are little to no differences between the physiological, psychoactive, and addictive effects of crack and powder cocaine. This study found that while crack cocaine has been linked to additional crimes and recidivism to a greater extent than powder cocaine has, these increased rates are associated with socioeconomic barriers to rehabilitation resources that most impact Black and Brown Americans.
This sentencing disparity's lack of scientific backing has been noted by politician past and present.
In 1995, The United States Sentencing Commission found that any small differences in the two forms of cocaine warranted no justifiable difference in sentencing mandatory minimums. Yet, over two decades later, disparate sentencing is still the federal practice.
Currently, federal policy dictates an 18:1 disparity between sentencing for crack and powder cocaine-related crimes. Yet, forty-two states have done away with the sentencing disparity entirely, utilizing a 1:1 sentencing ratio.
Mississippi is included in this number. Yet, despite this, Senator Roger Wicker sponsored legislation in opposition to the EQUAL Act which would implement the same sentencing policy as Mississippi at a federal level.
In our meeting with Senator Wicker’s Office in November, Dream.Org’s Milton had brought up the concerning difference between Mississippi’s sentencing policy and the policy that Wicker was sponsoring. Wicker’s aid had expressed shock, having previously been unaware that the SMART Cocaine Sentencing Act’s proposed policy differed from the policy governing the office’s constituents in Mississippi. We were ensured that the aide would bring up this concerning deviation to Senator Wicker.
I left the meeting feeling confidently celebratory. Yet, a little over a month later, the EQUAL Act was dead.
But, the fight for equal sentencing was not over. On February 17, 2023, a coalition of Democratic congresspeople introduced the EQUAL Act of 2023 seeking, as Senator and sponsor of the legislation Dick Durbin put it, to “rid of this discriminatory sentencing disparity for good.”
However, Senator Durbin’s declaration may yet come to fruition as once again, the EQUAL Act has been referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. Where, just as occurred with the same legislation from the previous congressional session, the bill has sat since it has been introduced.
While the congressional session is not set to close until January of 2024, the EQUAL Act may still face this bureaucratic barrier, and without political intervention, may once again die in committee.
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This article was written by Julia Comino, a political science and journalism major in the class of 2025, as part of Students for a Just Society's Contributing Writer program. Those who are interested in becoming a contributing writer can complete this application.
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