A Report on Federal Prosecution of Black People for Possessing and Selling Crack Cocaine (1996)

- Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, cocaine before the U.S. Supreme Court, an Alexander stump speech, and an Ann Taylor Fleming essay. Now the Supreme Court takes up allegations of racism in the criminal justice system, Charlene Hunter-Gault has more. - That issue in today's hearing, whether Blacks accused of selling crack cocaine have been targeted for federal prosecution because of their race. We'll hear more after this background report from Jeffrey Kay of station KCET, Los Angeles. - Since April 1992, this federal prison in downtown Los Angeles has housed Christopher Lee Armstrong, whose case today was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. Armstrong, a former postal worker, is being held without bond on charges that he and four alleged accomplices sold crack cocaine and carried firearms. The five have pleaded not guilty and claimed their prosecution on federal charges is racially

motivated, an allegation the government denies. - The truth is, Blacks are being unfairly prosecuted and I don't think that, I know it after living inside of this building for 46 months. - Armstrong and his co-defendants are charged with possessing and selling a total of about four and three quarter ounces of crack cocaine. The sales to undercover agents allegedly took place in this motel and in various parking lots around the Inglewood area in early 1992. Armstrong's lawyer, David Dudley, says the case transcends the details. - I think his case represents a fundamental problem with the criminal justice system. I think that pretty much the majority of people who are charged with crack cocaine offenses are only in federal court because of their race.

- The decision to try Armstrong and his co-defendants in federal as opposed to state court was a critical one. Conviction on federal charges could bring sentences ranging from 35 years to life in prison. The penalty in state prison would be three to ten years for the same crimes. Deputy federal public defender Barbara O'Connor is representing a co-defendant in the case. A case she says is part of a pattern of selective prosecution. - She claims Blacks accused of selling crack cocaine are more likely than whites to face federal rather than state charges. - Our lawyers were brainstorming these cases as it were. We noticed that all of the crack cocaine defendants that we were representing were Black. We noticed that these individuals were facing multi-decade sentences and we became concerned about the pattern of prosecution that all the defendants appeared to be Black.

So what we did was look at our closed files for 1991 and we found out that in fact our suspicions were true, that of the 24 individuals we represented that year 1991, all were Black. - Seeking to bolster the selective prosecution argument, O'Connor's office persuaded the judge in the case to order the government to hand over documents, a racial breakdown of its crack sales prosecutions and its guidelines for federal charges. The government refused to comply with the order and has fought the case to the Supreme Court. U.S. attorney Nora Manella says the government shouldn't be forced to turn over documents or to chase statistics in order to fend off what it considers spurious allegations. - We felt there was simply no basis for any inference of selective prosecution and no reason to send the government out on a fishing expedition to collect data and racial statistics which we do not compile and which are absolutely irrelevant to our prosecuted decisions.

All the government says it shouldn't have to compile data for the defense, statistics that collected for another case indicate comparatively high numbers of minorities have been prosecuted for federal crack trafficking crimes. According to its study between January 1992 and March 1995, 149 defendants were charged with federal crack cocaine crimes in the greater Los Angeles area. Of those only one was white, 109 were Black, 28 Hispanic, 8 were Asian. Manella says there's a reasonable explanation for the racial disparity. - The reason law enforcement is concentrating its anti-crack trafficking and anti-violent crime resources in the inner city is that that is the area most plagued by violent crime and crack trafficking. Period. Willie Sutton robbed banks because that's where the money was.