cannabisnews.com: Drug Sentences Mean Having to Say You're Sorry





Drug Sentences Mean Having to Say You're Sorry
Posted by FoM on May 21, 2000 at 21:39:53 PT
By Matthew Purdy
Source: New York Times
On the day Abraham Arroyo was sent to prison for 15 years to life for possession of a kilogram of cocaine, one angry man in the courtroom protested, "Even the minimum sentence on this defendant in this case, the 15 to life, is not a fair sentence." The dissident declared: "I'm not condoning narcotic trafficking. 
I'm in total support of the enforcement of those laws. My mere position is sometimes we have to have some compassion in life." He ended by saying, "It's a very unfair situation." The man attacking the sentence was also the man imposing it, Judge Jeffrey G. Berry of Orange County Court. He said he had recently finished a case involving a drug cartel and 75 kilograms of cocaine, in which defendants received lighter sentences than Mr. Arroyo by pleading guilty. But state law gave him no choice in the Arroyo case, and he said from the bench, "I welcome the Appellate Division to make a new law or the Court of Appeals to reverse me and make a more lenient sentence if they wish." Mr. Arroyo's wife, Carmen, remembers the judge's words six years later. "It's weird," she said. "He's a judge. He's not supposed to say that. But he had to do his duty, I guess." Judge Berry was hardly the only judge chafing under New York State's Rockefeller-era drug laws, which mandate a 15-year-to-life minimum sentence for selling two ounces or more of drugs or possessing at least four ounces. That's stiffer than the minimum sentence for manslaughter or rape and it applies to first-time drug felons like Mr. Arroyo, who is in Attica prison. Albany's Big Three -- the governor, the Senate majority leader and the Assembly speaker -- have each called at different times for loosening the laws, but that rough consensus has been frozen in place by conflicting political agendas. Perhaps the most damning indictment of the status quo emerges from sentencing transcripts from around the state in which judges have periodically deplored the sentences the laws force them to impose. Judge Martin E. Smith, of Broome County Court, told Lance A. Marrow last year: "When I say the law is draconian, in your case it is. I am required by law to impose a sentence that in my view you don't deserve." The drugs found in Mr. Marrow's apartment were not his but belonged to a guest, Judge Smith observed in court. Mr. Marrow, 52, had refused to plead guilty and accept minimal jail time, preferring to plead his innocence at trial. When he was convicted, Judge Smith had to sentence him to 15 years to life. "You impose the sentence that the case calls for, that the evidence calls for, that the defendant's prior record calls for," Judge Smith said in an interview. "Usually that works out. Every once in a while, you run into Lance Marrow. There's no way in the world that man deserved to get a 15-to-life sentence." In 1994, Steven W. Fisher, now the administrative judge of State Supreme Court in Queens, had such a case. "The wisdom of the drug laws is, of course, not for me to decide," he lamented in court before sentencing Miguel Arenas to 15 to life for his first felony conviction for selling barely enough cocaine to get him a stiff sentence. The judge cited a man who received the same sentence after pleading guilty to possessing 800 pounds of cocaine. Judge Fisher said last week that he didn't doubt Mr. Arenas's guilt, but had qualms about his getting a murderer's sentence. "When the amount is just slightly over the threshold and you're sentencing someone to the same sentence they would get if they had been convicted of intentionally taking someone's life," he said, "sometimes you feel compelled just to comment." Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder, of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, felt so compelled in March 1991 while sentencing a 60-year-old man with heart disease to 15 years to life for drug possession. Known as a tough judge, she told Jose Garcia she regretted he hadn't pleaded guilty and gotten a lighter sentence. "Sorry we both find ourselves in this situation," she said, adding, "I can only hope your health won't suffer too much." Mr. Garcia died in prison last August. The sentencing laws make judges say the bluntest things. Consider the observation of George F. X. McInerney, then a justice on State Supreme Court in Suffolk County, while sentencing a drug defendant 10 years ago: "It's probably a better gamble to kill somebody perhaps in an understandable situation than sell cocaine." His advice to a lawyer complaining about the sentences was more civil: "Write to your state legislator." Published: May 21, 2000Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company Cannabis & Drug Policy Information:http://cannabisnews.com/information/ CannabisNews Justice Archives:http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/justice.shtml
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Comment #1 posted by dddd on May 22, 2000 at 01:23:39 PT
reality check
I guess this is an example of the biggest problem.The basic problem involves all citizens of this country,who have chosen to ignore these things,or are not aware,(largely due to the strange lack of media coverage). If the facts were known,that you could be convicted of MURDER,and receive less time than a first time drug conviction,I think most people would be shocked. It seems like no one knows,or cares about these absurd injustices,until it touches their own lives. To be aware,and not speak out,is almost equivilent to condoning these things.......dddd
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