Feds Oppose Drug Sentencing Guidelines

The Justice Department asked Congress on Friday to reject proposed changes in sentencing guidelines that would impose equal punishments for crack-cocaine and powder-cocaine convictions.

The department wants to retain the current system in which punishments for crack are stiffer than those for the same amount of powder cocaine.

The changes, recommended last month by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, automatically would become law on Nov. 1 unless overridden by Congress.