Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 15, 1994 TAG: 9409150044
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By ANNE GEARAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The reasons for this disparity are many and they are not unique to Virginia. Poverty, unemployment, drugs, alcohol and racism all play a role.
Gov. George Allen said his plan to revamp sentencing and eliminate parole will even the field for blacks charged with crimes. He proposes to standardize sentences and reduce the leeway given to judges in picking a punishment.
``This is good policy for all Virginians. It makes us all safer on our streets and in our homes,'' Allen said.
Allen echoes claims made when the federal government and many states decided to abolish parole and limit judicial sentencing power. Studies in those places show racism in sentencing has been reduced but not eliminated.
Critics, however, question whether Allen's Proposal X will do much to pinch the pipeline from crime-ridden black neighborhoods to the state's prisons.
The plan won't limit the broad discretion police have in choosing whom to arrest and that prosecutors have in selecting what charges to file, said Julie McConnell, assistant director of the Virginia Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
``I haven't seen anything in Proposal X that will reduce the inequalities throughout the criminal justice system, and they are rampant,'' McConnell said.
Sentencing guidelines can be good, but they won't eliminate the bias of people writing the guidelines, she said.
She cited the mandatory sentences for cocaine sales under federal law as an example of invidious racism. Federal law attaches far stiffer penalties to crack, which is used most heavily by blacks, than to powdered cocaine, which is used primarily by whites, even though the drugs are chemically similar.
In Virginia, all forms of cocaine are handled the same.
Fear of crime runs deep among whites, blacks and other minorities, regardless of their economic station. But among minorities the fear is often double-edged; does getting tough on crime really just mean getting tougher on black men?
``Anytime there is judicial discretion, when there is a range of sentences that are offered, people of African descent are going to get the higher end of that range,'' said Salim Khalfani, branch and field coordinator for the Virginia state conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Khalfani and other black leaders met privately last month with the co-chairman of Allen's parole reform commission and emerged unconvinced Allen's plan would be fair to blacks.
But the NAACP pledged to continue discussions with the Allen administration.
``We've got to do something, but my concern is that it doesn't end up being something one-sided,'' said state Sen. Benjamin Lambert, D-Richmond. Lambert was among the black leaders who met with Allen.
``I don't know where the money to pay for this is coming from, and if it is going to come out of education or social services I don't think it's a good idea,'' Lambert said.
Standardizing sentences imposed by judges may help weed out racist sentences at the end of the criminal process, several people involved in the justice system said.
But what good, asked Arlington Circuit Judge Benjamin N.A. Kendrick, will that do when police and prosecutors still have broad discretion about whom to arrest, whom to charge and whether to offer a plea bargain?
John P. Flannery II, a Northern Virginia defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor, said the plan is weak medicine for blacks, women and the poor.
If you're any combination of the three, you will still face the same hurdles getting a competent lawyer and charting a complex criminal-justice system, Flannery said.
``The public defenders are just overwhelmed. If you're lucky you'll see your lawyer about twice before trial,'' he said.
Prosecutors usually make decisions out of the public eye, so their actions and reasons are hard to analyze, said David L. Fallen, executive director of the Washington State Sentencing Commission. Washington eliminated parole and established sentencing guidelines in 1984.
In a well-publicized example in Fallen's state, the prosecutor in one county routinely charges someone possessing one rock of crack cocaine under a law punishable by three months in jail. In the adjacent county, for the same act, the prosecutor routinely files a charge carrying a two-year prison term.
``Justice shifts at the county line,'' Fallen said.
In Virginia, Henrico County Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Michael V. Gerrard said he gets frustrated by suggestions that prosecutors pile on charges.
``We don't go in there with guns blazing,'' for black or poor defendants, Gerrard said.
In California, where as in Virginia there are mandatory sentences for using a handgun in a crime, a study showed police sometimes filed the charge and other times didn't, even when there appeared to be no difference in circumstances.
The study, which has been duplicated in other states, found that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to have gun charges filed than forgotten.
While racism plays a role in some prosecutions and sentences, looking at the numbers of blacks in prison is misleading, Judge Kendrick said.
He points to Death Row, where inmates are about evenly split between white and black, as proof the system is not inherently biased.
According to state prison officials, 26 men on death row are white, 26 are black and two are classified as being of other races. About 20 percent of Virginia's population is black.
``Virginia is not Mississippi or Alabama of a generation ago,'' Kendrick said.
by CNB