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TERRY v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

obtain; and these and other factors spurred violent crime.1 
In response to these concerns, Congress quickly passed a 
bill with near unanimity.2  The new law created mandatory-
minimum  penalties  for  various  drug  offenses,  and  it  set 
much lower trigger thresholds for crack offenses.  The Act 
included two base penalties that depended on drug quan-
tity: a 5-year mandatory minimum (triggered by 5 grams of
crack  or  500  grams  of  powder)  and  a  10-year  mandatory
minimum (triggered by 50 grams of crack or 5 kilograms of 
powder).  100 Stat. 3207–2, 3207–3.  The Act also created a 
third penalty—possession with intent to distribute an un-
specified  amount  of  a  schedule  I  or  II  drug—that  did  not 
treat crack and powder offenses differently, did not depend
on  drug  quantity,  and  did  not  include  a  mandatory  mini-
mum.  Id., at 3207–4. 

Petitioner was convicted under this Act and subjected to 

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1 United States Sentencing Commission, Report to the Congress: Co-
caine  and  Federal  Sentencing  Policy  5–6,  9–10,  and  n.  31  (May  2002);
“Crack” Cocaine, Hearing before the Permanent Subcommittee on Inves-
tigations of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, 99th Cong., 
2d Sess., 2, 5–6, 10, 94 (1986). 

2 The Act passed the Democratic-controlled House, where it was intro-
duced, 392 to 16.  H. R. 5484, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. (1986); 132 Cong. Rec.
23003–23004 (1986).  It passed the Republican-controlled Senate 97 to 2. 
Id., at 27251–27252.  A majority of the Congressional Black Caucus co-
sponsored and voted for the bill.  Compare id., at 23003, with Hearing
before the Congressional Black Caucus, “Brain Trust on Aging” and the 
House Select Committee on Aging, 99th Cong., 1st Sess., iii (1985).  Many 
black leaders in that era professed two concerns.  First, crack was fueling 
crime against residents in inner cities, who were predominantly black.
For  example,  the  president  of  an  NAACP  chapter  in  the  D. C.  region 
called crack “ ‘the worst thing to hit us since slavery,’ ” a sentiment ech-
oed by the leading black newspaper in Los Angeles.  J. Forman, Jr., Lock-
ing Up Our Own 158 (2017).  Second, there were concerns that prosecu-
tors were not taking these kinds of crimes seriously enough because the
victims were disproportionately black.  In the words of John Ray, a D. C.
councilmember who spearheaded a successful effort to create mandatory
minimum  penalties:  “ ‘Black  crimes  against  blacks  get  very  low  sen-
tences,’ ” unlike crimes against whites.  Id., at 132.