When the phrase “mandatory minimum” comes up, it often conjures up images of first-time offender 19-year-old “Raheem” getting five years behind bars because he had 5.1 grams of crack cocaine in his pocket, while habitual criminal “Eddy” gets one year in prison because he possessed 5.0 grams, or even 40 grams of powder cocaine.
This past Monday, April 3, representatives in the Pennsylvania State House were expected to approve a new mandatory minimum sentence law, and the conjuring has begun again—because other than “for sentences for offenses committed on public transportation, sentences for offenses against elderly persons, sentences for offenses against infant persons, sentences for failure to comply with registration of sexual offenders and sentences for offenses committed while impersonating a law enforcement officer,” found in HB 741, all the others are drug offenses.
There are those on both sides of the aisle concerning mandatory minimum sentences.
Prosecutors from across the state, including Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala, say they need the minimums to combat the exploding heroin epidemic.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that any fact triggering a mandatory minimum—the use of a gun, the amount of drugs possessed—must be determined by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Because in Pennsylvania those determinations were made by judges after trial, the state Supreme court ruled the guidelines unconstitutional in 2015.
Zappala said language in the new bill requires prosecutors to announce before the trial whether a mandatory minimum sentence will be sought. He and supporters such as state Rep. Dom Costa, D-Morningside, a onetime Pittsburgh assistant chief of police, who helped write the bill, said without minimums, low-level drug offenders often face no jail time, so there is no leverage to help them gather information on the “kingpins” higher up the distribution chain.
“We took a look at the most egregious of crimes—crimes against seniors, crimes against children— and naturally with the opioid problem now, we need a little stiffer push in the law,” Costa said. “It gives the district attorneys the ability to use that as an investigative and prosecutorial tool.”
Opponents, however, note the detrimental effects of mandatory sentencing in drug cases—including an arbitrary 100-1 ratio of possessing crack vs. powder cocaine—on the nation’s Black population have been substantial. They also note the minimums did nothing to curtail illegal drug use.
In a recent editorial published in the New Pittsburgh Courier and other outlets, Pennsylvania Secretary of Detention John Wetzel and his statistics director Kristofer “Bret” Bucklen noted that, if reintroduced, mandatory minimums could add another 2,200 inmates to the system, costing the state an extra $85 million—and would do nothing to improve public safety.
Brandi Fisher, Executive Director of the Alliance for Police Accountability said her organization is working with the ACLU to counter the reintroduction of mandatory minimums.
“It throws out all (judicial) discretion and any individualizing of cases and that’s not what people want. They want a public health approach taken—especially with respect to drug cases,” she said. “But some elected officials want to perpetuate systematic racism through the criminal justices system because at the end of the day those most affected by mandatory minimums are Black and Brown people.”
A 2009 report issued by the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing found mandatory sentences failed to curtail recidivism, noting most drug dealers, violent offenders–and nearly half of all firearms offenders—committed the same crime within three years of being released.
Though it’s expected to pass in the House, the bill faces far more foes in the state senate and is opposed by Gov. Tom Wolf.
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