The Supreme Court ruled Monday that federal judges have discretion to fashion more lenient sentences for crack cocaine defendants than those recommended by the federal sentencing guidelines.

Lengthy sentences for crack offenses have been the subject of ongoing controversy, and will be addressed by the U.S. Sentencing Commission this week. Several bills on the subject are pending in Congress.

The crack sentencing ruling in Kimbrough v. United States was one of a trio of decisions announced Monday in which the Supreme Court addressed federal sentencing policy. In 2005, the court ruled that the federal guidelines are advisory rather than mandatory. Two of the decisions issued Monday signaled a growing consensus within the court that judges should have more discretion to hand down sentences below the range set out in the federal sentencing guidelines.

In a 7-2 ruling, the court held in the Kimbrough case that federal judges must abide by statutory mandatory minimum prison sentences established by Congress, but have discretion to depart from the higher sentences allowed under the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s guidelines. Under the statutory mandatory minimum enacted by Congress, five grams of crack triggers a five-year prison term, while it takes 500 grams of powdered cocaine to trigger a minimum sentence of equal length.

In another 7-2 decision, in Gall v. United States, the justices reversed an 8th Circuit ruling that a federal trial judge erred in sentencing one defendant in a drug case to probation instead of a prison term.

The justices unanimously ruled, in Watson v. United States, that a defendant who traded drugs for a gun did not “use” the gun, under a federal law mandating a 5-year prison sentence for defendants who use or carry a firearm in conjunction with a drug trafficking crime.