United States v. Roderick Moore, No. 10-2261 (7th Cir. 2011)
Annotate this CaseIn 2008 defendant was recorded selling both crack and powder cocaine to a cooperating defendant and an undercover officer. He entered a conditional plea of guilty and received the 10-year minimum sentence, but appealed denial of a motion to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the crack-powder disparity codified at 21 U.S.C. 841(b), which punishes crack cocaine offenses 100 times more severely than powder cocaine offenses, violated his Fifth and Eighth Amendment rights. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The sentencing scheme survives rational basis review because there is at least some evidence that crack cocaine is more dangerous than powder. The court also applied rational basis review to a claim of disparate impact on African-Americans and found no intent to discriminate. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which effectively reduced the disparity to punishing crack offenses 18 times more severely, does not apply.
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