## Facts

- Five Black defendants were charged in Hennepin County with third-degree controlled substance crime for possessing three or more grams of cocaine base (crack) under Minn. Stat. § 152.023, subd. 2(1).
- The statute treated possession of three or more grams of crack as a third-degree offense, while requiring ten or more grams of powder cocaine for the same offense level; smaller powder amounts were punished as a lower-degree offense.
- The resulting sentencing consequences were substantially harsher for crack possession than for comparable powder possession (including longer maximum penalties and more severe presumptive guideline sentences).
- Defendants moved to dismiss, arguing the crack/powder quantity thresholds created unconstitutional racial disparities in violation of federal and state equal protection.
- The trial court found crack prosecutions were overwhelmingly against Black defendants while powder prosecutions were predominantly against white defendants, producing sharply disproportionate sentencing effects.
- Concluding the distinction lacked a rational basis and violated equal protection, the trial court dismissed the charges and certified the constitutional question for appellate review.
- The Minnesota Supreme Court granted accelerated review in the State’s pretrial appeal.

## Issues

1. Whether Minnesota’s statutory classification punishing possession of three or more grams of crack far more severely than possession of the same amount of powder cocaine violated equal protection under the Minnesota Constitution.
2. Whether the State’s asserted public-safety justifications established a genuine, fact-based distinction sufficient to satisfy Minnesota’s rational-basis test, given the statute’s stark disparate racial impact.

## Decision

- The Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of the charges.
- The court held the crack/powder cocaine quantity-based sentencing scheme violated the equal protection clause of the Minnesota Constitution.
- Applying Minnesota’s more demanding rational-basis review, the court concluded the State did not show a real and substantial distinction between crack and powder cocaine that justified the dramatic penalty differential.
- The court also found the threshold structure effectively imposed an irrebuttable presumption akin to trafficking-level culpability for relatively small crack possession, without an analogous threshold for powder cocaine.

## Legal Principles

- Minnesota equal protection rational-basis review requires: (1) a genuine and substantial (not illusory) classification, (2) relevance of the classification to the law’s purpose, and (3) a real and substantial distinction bearing a fair and substantial relation to the legislative objective.
- Under Minnesota’s test, the government must provide more than speculative or anecdotal assertions to justify materially different treatment of similarly situated persons.
- A facially neutral criminal classification with pronounced disparate racial impact may trigger close examination under Minnesota’s rational-basis standard when the asserted justification is not supported by substantial facts.
- Statutory thresholds that function as an irrebuttable presumption of greater culpability can support a finding that the classification is arbitrary when they are not reasonably tied to the stated purpose.

## Conclusion

The court invalidated Minnesota’s crack/powder cocaine possession disparity under the Minnesota Constitution, holding that the State failed to substantiate a real, substantial, and purpose-related basis for treating small-quantity crack possession far more harshly than comparable powder cocaine possession, especially in light of the statute’s pronounced disparate racial effects.


State v. Russell, 477 N.W.2d 886 (Minn. 1991)