Talk:United States v. Armstrong

I wish this article had a more context and impact analysis.

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander discusses this case:

of the fifty-tree crack cases their office [federal prosecutors] had handled over the prior three years, forty-eight defendants were black, five were Hispanic, and not a single one was white. Armstrong's lawyers found it puzzling that no whites had been charged with crack offenses, given most crack users are white. They suspected that whites were being diverted by federal prosecutors to the state system, where the penalties for crack offenses were far less severe. The only way to prove this, though, would be to gain access to the prosecutors' records

...

the court did not question the accuracy of the evidence submitted, but ruled that because Armstrong failed to identify any similarly situated white defendants who should have been charged in federal court but were not, he was not entitled even to discovery on his selective-prosecution claim. With no trace of irony, the Court demanded that Armstrong produce in advance the very thing he sought in discovery: information regarding white defendants

...

As a result of the Armstrong decision, defendants who suspect racial bias on the part of prosecutors are trapped in a classic catch-22. In order to state a claim of selective prosecution, they are required to offer in advance the very evidence that generally can be obtained only through discovery of the prosecutor's files. The Court justified this insurmountable hurdle on the grounds that considerable deference is owed the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

Reading Steven's dissent, he notes:

Finally, it is undisputed that the brunt of the elevated federal penalties falls heavily on blacks. While 65% of the persons who have used crack are white, in 1993 they represented only 4% of the federal offenders convicted of trafficking in crack.

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