In his third annual State of the Judiciary, Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court called upon the state legislature to authorize departures from mandatory minimums for drug offenses with mitigating circumstances like non-violence and disability. This statement was driven by the concern that drug convictions have a disproportionate impact on racial and ethnic minorities, with current mandatory minimums amplifying that negative impact.

This request comes after an attempt of a trial judge to give Imran Laltaprasad, who was convicted of possession and intent to distribute heroin and cocaine, a sentence lower than the mandatory minimum due to the small amount of contraband and an extreme medical condition. But the case was remanded by the Supreme Judicial Court as it violated current legislative discretion, and Laltaprasad was re-sentenced with mandatory minimums. In the aftermath, however, Gants has worked to pressure the legislature to reconsider these rules.

We applaud Gants for his work in racial equity and for pressing to ensure that sentences for drug offenses do not perpetuate inequality. Currently, Massachusetts imprisons African-Americans eight times more often and Hispanics 4.9 times more often than white defendants. This discrepancy is worse than the national average and deserves attention. For high mandatory minimums not only fail to fulfill productive goals of rehabilitation and reintegration, they also are very costly in terms of tax money and human capital. When the dimension of race is added in, systematic racial inequality is also further perpetuated.

While opponents have argued that granting discretion for mandatory minimums is too lenient and removes a barrier that might prevent offenders from committing the crime in the first place, drug offenses, especially non-violent ones, deserve special attention. If an offender is non-serious and also impacted by disability, as Laltaprasad was, there is ample reason to curtail the mandatory minimum sentences that only ensure the offender will be jailed away for an inordinate period of time at a high cost to taxpayers. Extended periods of imprisonment will also hurt chances of reintegration, causing further damage to society. It is important to realize that sufferers of addiction need rehabilitation more than punishment.

We are further supportive of Gants for commissioning Harvard Law School to explore reasons for current racial disparities. The purpose of this report is to inform the creation of sentencing guidelines that would both deter crimes and protect the public while also assuring sentences are racially and situationally equitable. Efforts to reform mandatory minimums have been stagnant in Massachusetts for years, while several other states, including traditionally conservative ones, have already reconfigured mandatory sentences or abandoned them entirely in favor of treatment programs.

We hope that the state legislature will take both the resulting report and Gants’ call for reformation seriously. Non-violent drug defenses are better answered by treatment and reintegration rather than immoral and inflexible punishment. By giving judges more discretion over mandatory minimums, Massachusetts will be able to move towards both greater racial equality and more enlightened administration of justice.