Opinion ID: 1907719
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Government's Justification.

Text: The ONADIAA contains no explanation of the extra year for powdered cocaine. In its brief, however, the government hypothesizes that the Council rationally could have believed that small dealers in cocaine powder are less likely than small dealers in cocaine base to be addicts who sell simply to support their habits. Thus, the Council could conclude, low-level dealers in cocaine base generally do not deserve the more severe punishment due low-level dealers in cocaine powder. Converting understatement into an art form, my colleagues in the majority say that the government's argument seems strained. Maj. op. at 89. I would have used a more emphatic adjective. The government's position is based on the notion that the Council decided, in the ONADIAA, to treat the distribution of small quantities of a less addictive substance more severely than the distribution of more dangerous ones. Such a legislative design would represent a dramatic departure from this jurisdiction's controlled substances laws, which have always been predicated on the theory that the more dangerous the drug, the more severe the penalty. In the District, the distribution of marijuana  probably the least addictive and harmful of the drugs which have been in vogue in recent years  is a misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum of a year in prison. See D.C.Code §§ 33-541(a)(2)(D), -522. Trafficking in addictive hard drugs, on the other hand, e.g. heroin, PCP, and crack cocaine, is a felony punishable by incarceration for thirty years, id. § 33-541(a)(2)(A), and was subject to a mandatory minimum until the enactment of the MMSAA. Moreover, as I have noted, both Congress and the Council were aware that crack is more addictive and more dangerous than powdered cocaine. If the Council had really intended to punish the sale of powdered cocaine more severely, then some mention of such a radical change of direction would surely have found its way into the Judiciary Committee Report. See NOW v. Mutual of Omaha Ins. Co., 531 A.2d 274, 276 (D.C. 1987). It did not. [26] The government theorizes that the Council may have believed that sellers of crack cocaine are more likely than distributors of powdered cocaine, and that they should therefore be punished less severely. The addict exception, however, was already a part of the law of the District of Columbia before the ONADIAA was enacted. See D.C.Code § 33-541(c)(2). Sellers of crack cocaine who qualified for the addict exception were not subject to mandatory minimum sentencing at all. Accordingly, it would make no sense to enact a lower mandatory minimum for a distributor of crack than for a seller of powdered cocaine on the theory that the former is more likely to be an addict. The qualifying addict who sold crack would not be affected by the mandatory minimum, however high or low it may be set. In my opinion, there is nothing even approaching rationality in the government's imaginative hypothesized rational basis for the incongruous treatment of crack and powdered cocaine. If, as I suspect, the Council made an administrative error, then such an error surely cannot provide the rational basis which the Constitution requires before a defendant can be arbitrarily compelled to serve an additional year in prison. If the Council did it on purpose  and I simply cannot believe that this is what occurred  then the extra year must fall anyway, for the only proffered explanation of it is contrary to reason. We are dealing here with a year of Ms. Park's life. Before she can be lawfully incarcerated for so much additional time for dealing in a less dangerous drug, some plausible reason must exist for such treatment. Plausibility cannot be manufactured by resort to imaginative hypotheses. The government's argument fails.