Opinion ID: 2977899
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: -2- Banks argues on appeal that his sentence is based on an illogical distinction between crack and powder cocaine made by 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(B). As it stands, the statute dictates that a drug trafficker dealing in crack cocaine is subject to the same sentence as one dealing in 100 times more powder cocaine. The statute also establishes a mandatory minimum penalty of 60 months’ imprisonment for the possession or distribution of more than 5 grams of crack cocaine. Banks reasons that this enhanced mandatory sentence is greater than necessary to promote the purposes of sentencing set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). This court normally reviews sentencing decisions for reasonableness. United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 260-61 (2005). But the district court lacked discretion to sentence Banks to a term of imprisonment lower than the 60-month statutory minimum. See United States v. Franklin, 499 F.3d 578, 586 (6th Cir. 2007) (“Although Booker gave substantial discretion to the sentencing court to impose sentences below a mandatory maximum, nothing in Booker allows the court to negate the imposition of a mandatory minimum sentence.”); United States v. Wheeler, 535 F.3d 446, 458 (6th Cir. 2008) (holding that the district court was bound to impose the mandatory minimum sentence under 21 U.S.C. § 841, thus foreclosing any Booker, Sixth Amendment, or reasonableness arguments). Moreover, this court has repeatedly rejected constitutional challenges to penalty provisions that treat crack cocaine more harshly than powder cocaine. See, e.g., United States v. Blair, 214 F.3d 690, 702 (6th Cir. 2000); United States v. Bingham, 81 F.3d 617, 630-31 (6th Cir. 1996). Banks concedes that this is the current state of the law, but urges us to reexamine this court’s previous rulings in light of the United States Sentencing Commission’s 2007 amendments, which reflected the Commission’s earlier findings that the disparity in punishments between crack cocaine and -3- powder cocaine offenses has an unfairly disproportionate impact on black defendants. See Amendments to the Sentencing Guidelines for United States Courts, 72 Fed. Reg. 28571-28572 (May 21, 2007); United States Sentencing Commission, Report to Congress: Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy 8 (May 2007) (“The current severity of crack cocaine penalties mostly impacts minorities.”). Pursuant to these findings, the 2007 amendments reduced the offense level associated with each quantity of crack by two levels. Id. But the Supreme Court has held that those amendments “still produce sentencing ranges keyed to the mandatory minimums in the 1986 Act.” Kimbrough v. United States, 128 S. Ct. 558, 569 n.10 (2007). Nothing about the Guidelines amendments or the Booker/Kimbrough line of cases, therefore, indicates that we should reexamine this court’s past rulings on the constitutionality of § 841(b). In sum, Banks cannot demonstrate that the district court erred in imposing the 60-month sentence. The district court lacked any discretion to issue a sentence below the statutory minimum, which has been repeatedly held constitutional by this court. We presume that Banks has raised this issue solely to preserve it for possible Supreme Court review. That he has accomplished, but nothing more.