ANDERSON, Ind. – For hearing after hearing, Nicole Brown sat in the front row so she could stay on top of the fast-paced discussions between Judge Mark Dudley and attorney Thomas G. Godfrey regarding the fate of her son.

Most of the time, Nicole Brown was accompanied by other family members. But on Monday, she sat all alone as Kraig Von Reese Brown was sentenced to 35 years in prison for a Class A felony dealing cocaine.

From where she sat, nothing about the March 22 jury trial or the sentencing was fair. It’s just one more piece of evidence demonstrating the judicial system is particularly unfair to young black men, she said.

“I just want my son to have some justice … That’s more than some people get for killing people,” Nicole Brown said of the sentence.

Black and Latino males convicted of drug-related offenses at the local, state and federal levels often face sentences nearly 20 percent longer than those imposed on white men convicted of similar crimes, according to a 2014 American Civil Liberties Union report.

“The Anti-Drug Abuse Act that was passed in the 80s penalized crack convictions much stiffer than the powder cocaine,” said Nicole Porter, director of advocacy at the Sentencing Project.

Crack was used more in urban communities — often communities of color — because it was a cheaper drug, and poorer people didn’t use the more expensive drug, Porter said.

On average, crack convictions resulted in sentences of about 115 months, compared to sentences averaging 87 months for powder cocaine convictions, according to the United States Sentencing Commission.

For example, if someone was caught with powder cocaine, they’d need to have 100 grams to get the same penalty as someone caught with 1 gram of crack cocaine.

These harsh sentences were put in place to discourage dealers and users from using crack cocaine, but they also sent a large number of blacks to prison, even though whites and blacks reported using the drugs equally, said Porter.

President Barack Obama has spoken out on what he believes are excessive sentences for drug-related crimes. He signed into law the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 intended to reduce the disparity between the amount of crack cocaine and powder cocaine needed to trigger certain federal criminal penalties.

The Fair Sentencing Act contributed to a national conversation and hundreds of federal prisoners were able to apply for shorter sentences.

Even though the law brought to light the issues of mass incarceration, it doesn’t reduce the sentences of those prosecuted under state law — where most incarceration for drug-related offenses occurs.

In Indiana, Kraig Brown filed a notice of appeal from the conviction on April 8, and he told Dudley he also planned to appeal the sentence.

“Nobody on that jury was black, and nobody on that jury was 22,” his mother said, explaining how her son did not really face a jury of his peers.

Arrested in January while he was with a bank robbery suspect, Kraig Brown still faces charges in several other cases.

Nicole Brown said she believes the entire drug dealing case was an attempt to get her son back into prison and to keep him there.

“When we come to court, we always expect the worst because we never have anything good happen here,” she said.

Kraig Brown, a father of a 4-year-old and a 7-month-old, previously served a sentence for armed robbery. Five days after he was released, Nicole Brown said, Anderson police went looking for him at his father’s house for the 2011 incident on which the drug dealing charge is based.

“Why did y’all wait till he got out of prison to come and get him?” the mother of three asked.

The recommended sentence, according to the pre-sentence investigation, was 30 years in prison, though it could have been as high as 40 years. Dudley, however, explained how he researched the case law to make sure he was well within the law to deviate from the recommendation and impose a higher sentence without risk of reversal at appeal.

“I wanted to make sure this particular case is not affected that way,” he said.

Dudley said he also took into consideration Kraig Brown’s three felony convictions as an adult and what he perceived as a lack of remorse.

“There is no remorse because you consistently say, ‘It wasn’t me; I didn’t do it,’” the judge said. “You’re smiling and smirking at me because you think you didn’t do it, but the jury thought otherwise.”

Bibbs writes for the (Indiana) Herald Bulletin.