WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday granted judges more discretion to be lenient with drug defendants, further chipping away at the harsh sentences once imposed for crack cocaine.

In a closely watched 7-2 ruling that temporarily united conservatives, centrists and liberals on the bench, the court ruled that federal court judges can impose less severe punishment than called for by federal sentencing guidelines. For years, some trial judges and lawmakers have contended that crack cocaine sentencing guidelines are Draconian and racially biased, because most convicted crack dealers are African American.

"It would not be an abuse of discretion for a district court to conclude when sentencing a particular defendant that the crack/powder (cocaine) disparity yields a sentence greater than necessary," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority. Dissenting were Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

In a related drug case, on a 7-2 vote, the court upheld a judge who had sentenced an Ecstasy dealer to probation rather than the recommended 2 1/2 years in prison.

"The (sentencing) guidelines are the starting point and initial benchmark, but are not the only consideration," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the case, called Gall v. United States.

The cocaine decision – involving Derrick Kimbrough, a convicted black drug dealer from Virginia – doesn't eliminate all sentencing distinctions between powder and crack cocaine. Rather, the ruling gives trial judges more leeway when they disagree with federal sentencing guidelines.

Concerned about stories of crack's super-potency, Congress set much stricter penalties for crack than for powder cocaine two decades ago. The so-called "100 to 1" sentencing disparity means that possessing 5 grams of crack brings the same five-year prison term as possessing 500 grams of powder cocaine.

The ruling in Kimbrough v. United States means judges can give shorter sentences without being second-guessed.

Three years ago, the Supreme Court made all federal sentencing guidelines advisory rather than mandatory. That decision, though, left unclear how much discretion judges retained to deviate from recommended sentences.

In California, federal crack cocaine cases have made up a much smaller percentage of cocaine and drug convictions compared with the rest of the country, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Nationally, crack cocaine convictions were tallied at almost the same rate as powdered cocaine cases, 48 percent compared with 52 percent, in fiscal year 2006, the last year for which the federal sentencing information is available. The 5,379 crack cocaine cases also accounted for 21 percent of all federal drug convictions in the country, according to the commission's figures.

But in California, the 113 crack convictions in the same period made up just under a third of all cocaine cases and only 6.3 percent of all the drug cases.

In the U.S. Eastern District, which includes Sacramento, crack cocaine made up 56 percent of the cocaine convictions and 21.2 percent of the drug total, more in line with the national average, according to the Sentencing Commission's statistics.

Under state law, possession of crack cocaine carries the same penalties as possession of heroin and powdered cocaine – 16 months, two years or three years in prison. Possession of crack cocaine for sale, however, can earn prison terms of three, four or five years while the other substances carry terms of two, three or four years upon conviction.