Sentencing of Federal Cocaine Trafficking/Manufacturing Defendants: Assessing Direct and Conditioning Effects of Defendant's Race/Ethnicity and Gender on Length of Imprisonment

Celesta Albonetti

[...]does a defendant's race/ethnicity condition the effects of sources of judicial discretion permitted by the Guidelines on length of imprisonment? [...]does defendant's race/ethnicity condition the effect of defendant's gender, Guidelines relevant variables, and statutory mandatory minimum penalties on length of imprisonment? I shall seek to answer these questions by first providing a description of the legal and policy issues related to enactment of the 1984 Federal Sentencing Reform Act (hereinafter SRA), the Guidelines, amendments, and provisions relevant to drug trafficking/manufacturing sentencing in Part 11 of this article. Furthermore, findings reveal that defendant's race/ethnicity conditions the effects of Guidelines departures, "safety valve" provisions, drug mandatory minimum penalties, and the adjusted Guidelines maximum sentence on length of imprisonment.7 The findings on the conditioning effect of defendant's race/ethnicity provides strong empirical support for social science and legal theories that hypothesize that disadvantaged groups are treated more severely in the criminal justice system.8 However, contrary to expectations derived from the above four theoretical perspectives, findings from my research indicate that, compared to white defendants, African-American and Hispanic defendants (estimated separately) receive less sentence reduction from Guidelines departures and application of the "safety valve" provision.9 The effect of the Guidelines-relevant variable, adjusted for maximum guidelines sentences, results in statistically greater increases in sentence length for whites defendants, compared to African-American defendants and to Hispanic defendants. "12 The Act instructed the Commission to tie sentence outcomes directly to offense of conviction13 and offender categories.14 The Commission was to prescribe guidelines denoting an applicable sentence by systematically considering offense type, relevant conduct (i.e., defendant's role in the offense, type and amount of drugs, the level of defendant's criminal involvement), and offender's prior criminal history.15 Judge William W. Wilkins Jr. et al. outlined the essential policy features of the reform measure by noting: 1. a clear, concise statement of the federal law of sentencing, including the kinds and lengths of sentences authorized for both individual and organizational defendants and a statement of permissible sentencing purposes; 2. a provision for the development of a comprehensive set of sentencing guidelines to structure and limit the exercise of judicial sentencing discretion within permissible sentencing ranges, consistent with authorized sentencing limits and enunciated sentencing objectives; 3. an allowance for departure from the sentencing guidelines ranges where necessary in atypical cases to endure fairness; 4. a requirement that the sentencing judge specifically state on the record the reasons for the sentence imposed and, if the judge sentenced outside the guideline range, the reason(s) for the departure; 5. an allowance for appellate review of sentences imposed to ensure correctness of guidelines application and reasonableness of departures from guidelines ranges; and 6. the abolition of parole and its replacement with a definite, determinate sentencing system under which a sentence to imprisonment would be served without benefit of parole, reduced only by a "good time" allowance of a maximum of fifty-four days per year for satisfactory prison behavior.16 With Congressional directives to reform federal sentencing by substantially reducing the latitude of discretion enjoyed by federal judges, the Commission designed a structure and process of decision-making that specified the steps to be followed when determining an offender's sentence.17 The Federal Sentencing Guidelines Manual codifies the Guidelines and provides the sentencing structure and process that federal judges are to follow in determining the presumptive guidelines sentencing range.18 Adherence to the Manual's directives was expected to result in sentence outcomes that reflect Congress' mandate to achieve uniformity, proportionality, and truth in sentencing.19 The Manual contains a Sentencing Table consisting of a vertical axis and horizontal axis.20 The vertical axis consists of forty-three levels, each obtained by methodologically applying Chapter Two directives.21 Calculations begin with determining the base of offense level (BOL) by considering the statutory offense of conviction.22 Once the BOL is determined, additional numerical values are calculated based on Guidelines-specified relevant conduct.23 Summing the BOL with each of the relevant conduct weights result in the final offense level of the vertical axis of the Sentencing Table.24 The value for the horizontal axis of the Sentencing Table is the sum of the calculations of the defendant's criminal history.25 The intersection of the values of these two axes identifies the presumptive sentencing range.26 Mechanically applying the above process represents the structure the Guidelines expected to produce uniformity in sentence outcomes for defendants who have similar offense characteristics and similar criminal histories.27 Chapter Five of the Guidelines rules out consideration of the offender's age, education and vocational skills, mental and emotional conditions, physical condition (including drug or alcohol dependence or abuse), employment record, family ties, responsibilities, and community ties, race, sex, national origin, creed, religion, and socio-economic status, military, civic, charitable, or public service, employment-related contributions, record of prior good works, and lack of guidance as a youth and similar circumstances as relevant to determining sentence outcome.28 Disallowing discretionary consideration of the above defendant characteristics is an essential feature of the Guidelines scheme that is intended to further contribute to uniformity in sentence outcomes.29 Thus far, I have described the features of the Guidelines' scheme intended to severely restrict judicial discretion.

Sentencing of Federal Cocaine Trafficking/Manufacturing Defendants: Assessing Direct and Conditioning Effects of Defendant's Race/Ethnicity and Gender on Length of Imprisonment

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