U.S. Attorney on Crack Cases

* Your May 21 article suggesting the U.S. attorney’s office “targets” minority crack dealers while ignoring whites fails to comprehend the reality of crack’s impact on minority communities and law enforcement’s efforts to address this epidemic. Knowing that our detailed response to such allegations was to be made public in only three days, you nonetheless chose to run an article without the benefit of our full position. When our several-hundred-page response was filed, you chose to ignore its contents, in favor of restating your original inaccurate allegations (May 26).

Stated plainly, you ignored the victims. There can be no serious debate that the destructive impact of crack falls mainly on minority communities, and that the victims of violence disproportionately associated with crack are predominantly people of color. The Times has documented at length the appalling devastation and violent repercussions of crack trafficking in South-Central Los Angeles. In contrast, there is scant evidence crack is ravaging middle-class and affluent white communities in the same way. It should come as no surprise that with limited resources, law enforcement makes a special commitment to police those areas where the most citizens need protection. These practices are consistent throughout the nation.

The “statistics” relied upon in your article have been conclusively refuted in pleadings previously filed by this office and ignored by your reporter. Yet even those statistics belie any inference of selective federal prosecution: Under the figures reported, only one-quarter of 1% (.0025) of all crack defendants prosecuted by the state in Los Angeles County are whites dealing in quantities sufficient to meet federal prosecution thresholds. When applied to our current rate of approximately 50 crack prosecutions per year, your own figures make it reasonable to expect to see one white crack defendant every eight years in federal court.

The disparities between sentences mandated under federal statutes and state law are an appropriate subject for public debate. Penalties, however, are a matter for state legislatures and Congress, not law enforcement agencies or prosecutors. The only defendants the U.S. attorney’s office “targets” are those whose crimes meet the office’s objective guidelines for federal prosecution, regardless of race. No court has ever found otherwise.

NORA M. MANELLA

United States Attorney

Central District of California

Los Angeles