Man Acquitted of Possessing Crack Cocaine -- Gets 15 Years
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:23 PM

Fortunately, this sort of thing could not happen in a country where juries provide the ultimate check on the power of the state to punish. The case just described, for instance, derives from some remote, tyrannous locale called "Wisconsin". The defendant was found guilty of possessing powdered cocaine -- a conviction that might have netted him three years in prison. He simultaneously was acquitted of a charge of possessing crack cocaine. The farsighted magistrate, the Solon of the Seventh Circuit, Judge John Shabazz, nevertheless sentenced the possessor of the unapproved substance(s) to 18 years in prison, relying on precedent that allows judges to alter sentences based on charges for which defendants are acquitted. The Supremes let the injustice stand. (Of course, the injustice would be little eased had the defendant been convicted of the crack charge. Our whole vilification/prohibition of cocaine is so unnecessary, and so accidental. (Naturally I am not claiming that cocaine is a safe drug -- it obviously is not.) Remember when popes used to say good things about coke?)

Thanks to a Friend of Vice Squad for the pointer.

Labels: cocaine, sentencing

 
Vietnamese Cruelty
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:19 PM

US drug laws are draconian by any rational standard, but in various Asian dragons, draco stalks the land even more ruthlessly. An Australian woman was convicted in Vietnam for trying to smuggle 1.5 kilos of heroin OUT of the country. She received life in prison.

That is, at first she received a life sentence, but the sentence was changed on appeal. Not an appeal by the defense -- no, an appeal by the prosecution. And the appeals court could not abide by the trial court's leniency -- after all, mercy in this case might lead to more heroin leaving the country. So now the 34-year old woman is slated to be executed by firing squad.

This is the (il)logical end of the criminalization of victimless crimes. The usual story is that we calibrate punishment with the harm caused by criminal behavior. Without actual harm, who knows what constitutes an appropriate penalty? A small fine? Execution? There were times when those who traded heroin internationally were respected, upstanding businesspeople -- their punishment was thanks. How have we -- and the Vietnamese -- convinced ourselves that heroin trading must be harshly, cruelly punished?

Labels: Asia, heroin, sentencing

 
Vacant Cells -- What Is To Be Done?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:35 PM

Crack offenders who received ridiculously long sentences -- ridiculous in comparison with similar offenders of the cocaine (but non-crack) variety, and more ridiculous (for the non-violent offenders) relative to any reasonable standard of justice -- are qualifying for "early" release from prison. But nature abhors a vacuum -- who can be recruited to fill the vacated prison cells?

Hmmm, how about khat offenders! Sure, khat is legal in benighted parts of the world, such as the UK, but in the good ol' USA, we jealously guard our right to arrest khat possessors. Now how to get these local khatheads into federal prison? Well, that's what those multi-jurisdictional drug task forces were created for, no?

[Update: Pennsylvania gets in on the jailing khatheads craze.]

Labels: arrests, khat, sentencing

 
One Sane Move in Iran
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:53 PM

The Iranian man who was reported to be sentenced to death for drinking alcohol -- well, he was a repeat offender, and the law calls for execution upon a third drinking offense -- has been released, and this time, he didn't even receive the 80 lashes. This happy turn of events came about because of a clever, Matlock-worthy legal tactic: the scoundrel refused to come clean!

"Since the accused did not confess to drinking alcohol in front of the judge, he was acquitted and released," Judge Jalil Jalili was quoted as saying.

The same judge was quoted on Wednesday in Etemad newspaper as saying the young man, named only as Mohsen, had been sentenced to death.

"Police in a park suspected that Mohsen had drunk alcohol. They arrested him and took him to be breathalysed. The results proved he had consumed alcohol but afterwards the accused denied having done so," said the judge.

In civilized countries, a failure to confess to a victimless crime has been known to increase the sentence.

Labels: alcohol, sentencing

 
Getting Serious About Drugs
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 3:53 PM

Via Andrew Sullivan, we learn that at least in Dubai, they are getting serious about the nefarious use of mild-altering substances. (Maybe not quite at the Irani level of seriousness, however -- which extends to other vices.) Crack customs officials at Dubai International Airport spotted a potential druggie; the subsequent investigation yielded all the evidence they needed to garner a rewarding four-year prison term for the drug kingpin. The obviously thorough search:

uncovered a speck of cannabis weighing just 0.003g - so small it would be invisible to the naked eye and weighing less than a grain of sugar - on the tread of one of his shoes.

This latest piece of proficient Dubai airport policing follows close upon the heels of nailing a rogue carrying some melatonin into the desert paradise.

In the US, we do what we can, but I am afraid the Dubai level of drug war vigilance still eludes us.

Labels: recreational drug use, sentencing

 
Humanitarian Anti-Vice Wars
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:33 PM

The punishment of drug users (as opposed to sellers) is supposed to help the users themselves: the knowledge that they might be punished provides some deterrence against use, and since the drugs (goes the claim) will themselves harm the users, total harm can go down if you threaten mild punishments for drug users. The War on Drugs, you see, is a humanitarian war. But once the punishments do more harm than the drugs -- as Jimmy Carter famously noted about US marijuana laws -- then you might want to rethink your strategy. Nevertheless, lots of places don't let humanitarian considerations get in the way of a full bore war on drugs.

Iran has announced its plans to execute a 22-year-old man for getting caught drinking alcohol on a fourth occasion.

Hegel believed that people could be coerced into taking actions that best served their own interests. Bertrand Russell, in discussing Hegel's view, quotes Hereclitus: ‘Every beast is driven to the pasture with blows.’ Russell continues in sarcastic vein: “Let us, in any case, make sure of the blows; whether they lead to a pasture is a matter of minor importance…"

Labels: alcohol, sentencing

 
A Letter from a Drug Enforcement Agent
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:41 AM

The letter appeared one week ago in the Washington Times. The author indicated that he "served almost 30 years as a federal drug enforcement agent." He was writing to express support for the recent Supreme Court decision that allows judges to depart from the sentencing guidelines for cocaine offenses. In the course of the letter, this drug war veteran avers: "If the U.S. government wishes to continue its futile and counterproductive crusade against illegal drug use, it should regard all illegal drug trafficking and use as equally deserving of punishment." (While I do not think the drug war is futile, I do think it is counterproductive.) Speaking of law enforcers questioning the drug war...

Labels: drugs, sentencing, Supreme Court

 
Indonesian Insanity
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:53 PM

Indonesia's cruelty in the name of the drug war is persistent but, alas, not unique. Here's an article concerning a 21-year old Australian whom the Indonesians hope soon to kill for carrying around an officially disapproved substance when he was 18 -- surely his impending death will be undertaken for the children. Another Indonesian court is showing dangerous leniency in the case of a repeat possessor (not trafficker), an American who has been sentenced to a mere three and a half years in prison. (More than ten years ago his failure to obey rules on what not to possess cost him a year in an Indonesian jail.) I am certain his (surely too merciful) punishment is for the children, because the judge said so: 'The defendant repeated his acts, which could cause the moral damage of Balinese youth.' Throwing people's lives away for a pin's fee, however, apparently is not morally damaging, to children or adults.

Indonesian idiocy is longstanding; it is also widely shared. What did Bertrand Russell say? “The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."

Labels: Asia, drugs, heroin, sentencing

 
One Month for Fake Coke Sale
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:48 PM

When you are ripped off in a transaction involving an illegal drug, just try going to the police. But when one of their informants is ripped off, well then, that is a different matter entirely. In the Pittsburgh area, Lloyd Amos just pleaded guilty to "theft by deception":

Police busted Amos in 2003 for selling a plastic bag of about 5.9 grams of bread crumbs to a police informant who paid $180 for what was supposed to be an eighth-ounce of cocaine.

Mr. Amos had been in jail for a month prior to the guilty plea, so the judge granted an immediate parole from a sentence with a 30-day minimum jail term.

Fake coke stories on Vice Squad date from our second day of operation.

Labels: cocaine, informants, policing, sentencing

 
China's Drug War Cruelty
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:48 AM

The absurd punishments for the consensual drug-related 'crimes' in the US are disheartening, but some countries are even worse -- I suppose the States can take some comfort there? China is one of the most egregious offenders. Right now, seven Ugandans have been sentenced to death for heroin trafficking in China. They were convicted of trafficking in more than 50 grams -- that's nearly two ounces, folks, and might be enough to keep a single addict supplied with heroin for a whole month. (If they were convicted of trafficking of less than 50 grams, they would have been eligible "only" for 15 years in prison.) The Ugandan government is pleading for clemency from the Chinese, but at the same time, doesn't want anyone to think that Uganda isn't committed to the well-designed global drug war policy. The story can be found here.

Labels: China, heroin, sentencing

 
Ohio's Attempt to Stigmatize Drunk Drivers
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:05 PM

It's not like drunk drivers otherwise get good press or anything, but it is hard to know if the person in the car next to you has recently been convicted of drunk driving. The state of Ohio helps to make such inferences easier by requiring "yellow [license] plates with red lettering for drivers with two DUI convictions in a six-month span or those who record high blood-alcohol levels." But motorists, even those who seemingly fit the criteria, are finding ways to avoid the Scarlet Lettering. One way is to plead no contest to a charge that doesn't require that you admit your high blood-alcohol reading. A second way is to try to postpone sentencing until after the 6-month license suspension has already elapsed, as (somehow) this means you can avoid the color coded plates. Ohio legislators are looking at ways to limit such dodges, according to the linked article.

In related news, DUI Blog has a recent interesting post about the evolution and likely future of DUI laws in the US.

Labels: alcohol, driving, sentencing

 
Saturday morning reading
- posted by Michael @ 10:36 AM

What would a Saturday morning be without some exciting drug-related tidbits? None of the information below is really “new news,” but by some coincidence I learned it all within the last 2 hours.

1. First I found out that the war on drugs must have been finally won, at least in Europe. A Russian-language news site reported that the Austrian police has recently confiscated the largest shipment of cocaine in the country’s history. The cocaine weighed in at 143 kilos and, according to the Austrian police, it was high quality stuff. The street price is estimated to be more than 100 mln. euros. The interesting thing to me was that the shipment apparently originated in Colombia and traveled via the Bahamas, the US, and France. I have always wondered why these things sometimes travel in such a roundabout way, including through the countries where they are supposed to be consumed, before ending up in some location from which they have to travel back to those final consumption countries. I am sure there are rational explanations and I can even guess what they are. But it would be interesting to know the details. Incidentally, Austria is apparently far behind the US in its war on drugs. The same story reported that the previous shipment handled by the same drug ring was much bigger (277 kilos) and was confiscated in South Carolina, apparently without setting any records.

2. The News of the Weird column for January 9, 2005 reports about a Dutch retirement home in Rotterdam that specializes on serving the “incorrigible heroin addicts.” Apparently it has a long waiting list. I do not know whether the retirement home seeks to provide rehabilitation services, but it appears it does not. Also, it looks like the police are not interested in raiding it. Wouldn’t it be nice indeed if at least the retired people who can afford it could enjoy whatever drugs they want to consume in the privacy of their homes? But perhaps they already do in some more enlightened countries. BTW, this is not really a selfish wish. My drugs of choice are alcohol and caffeine. I am already able to consume them in the privacy of my home.
3. And here is my favorite item from the same News of the Weird column. In Salt Lake City late last year, federal judge Paul G. Cassell was forced by the mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines to sentence a 25-year-old small-quantity marijuana dealer to 55 years in prison. The sentence was so harsh because the dealer had a gun on him during two of the transactions. Two hours before that, Judge Cassell sentenced a man to 22 years in prison for killing an elderly woman by beating her to death with a log. The latter crime was not subject to the mandatory minimum guidelines. This is weird indeed.

Labels: addiction, cocaine, drugs, Europe, marijuana, Netherlands, sentencing, treatment

 
Extreme Vice Enforcement Cruelty
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:50 PM

What could be more inhumane than imposing the death penalty for victimless vice crimes? But inhumanity never lacks for a strong constituency. In Iran, plans are in place to hang a 21-year old alleged prostitute, following last year's judicial murder of a 16-year old for having an "illegal sexual relationship." Amnesty International claims that this year's scheduled victim has the mental capacity of an 8-year old, but that has been denied by Iran. Why bother with the denial? They are planning to "execute" someone whose sexual behavior they don't condone, and they quibble over her mental age? Whose mental age is most questionable in this vile, unspeakable practice?

"Would the duke that is absent have done this?
Ere he would have hanged a man for the getting a
hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing
a thousand..." Maybe the mullahs should take Shakespeare's hint, and worry more about helping women engaged in prostitution than about trying to extirp them.

Labels: prostitution, sentencing, Shakespeare

 
Drug War Lunacy Declines in New York
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:54 PM

New York State is reducing the severity of the punishments it attaches to some drug "crimes" -- better 30 years late than never. It's a start, I suppose, but only a start: "Two longtime goals of drug law reformers — giving near-total sentencing discretion to judges and allowing some offenders to avoid prison entirely in favor of treatment — are not included in the agreement."

The linked article quotes Governor George Pataki: "'Now we put in a new law that will rationalize that sentencing (structure) and make the punishment fit the crime,' he said." But with "victimless" drug crimes, the punishment can never be calibrated to the crime, if there is any appreciable punishment at all, because the proscribed activity itself does not create any non-consensual harm, or even create a significant probability of creating such harm. So adult vices are sometimes punished harshly, and at other times are ignored or legal or even celebrated. The calibration of the punishment is made to swings in the popular mood, not to the harmfulness of the outlawed behavior -- a theme that Vice Squad has sounded before.

Labels: drugs, New York, sentencing

 
One View of Coerced Treatment
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 3:00 PM

First, apologies for being away. Second, a warning that there will be a couple more days of light blogging, alas.

The view of drug courts comes from Blonde Justice, via the new-look Crim Law. Here's a sample:

The court offered my client 6 months jail or a 6 month residential program. The catch is that if he failed to complete the 6 month residential program, he'd face one year of jail.

It is always difficult to counsel clients on this decision. Very few of my clients successfully complete the program. The rest are setting themselves up for "jail on the installment plan." Most clients cannot see it this way. Most look at the short term and see "leaving jail today," not "possibly coming back to jail for a year." Every client believes that they'll be the one to be successful, that this is their chance (or maybe they don't even believe it, they're just saying it), and who am I to tell them otherwise? I lay out the choices, and the consequences, and let my clients make their own decisions.

Labels: drugs, sentencing, treatment

 
The Crack Dealers of Anderson County
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:13 PM

Scott Henson of Grits For Breakfast has been tracking a recent episode in which 72 people, all of them black, have been charged with dealing in crack cocaine in a rural Texas county. (Here's one of Scott's previous posts; Pete at Drug WarRant explained the absurdity/tragedy of it all, too.) Yesterday Scott brought word of an article about the Anderson County case in The Texas Observer. When reading the article, it might be useful to keep in mind the Vice Squad mantra, that the high and mighty purpose served by our war on drugs is to make it a little bit harder for some of our friends and neighbors to consume a substance that they want to consume.

Does this Anderson County case sound familiar?

Labels: cocaine, sentencing, Texas

 
Naperville Considers Limiting Its Collective Punishment Law
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:33 PM

On Friday we mentioned the town meeting that was to be held on Saturday in Naperville, Illinois, about their law that tickets non-drinking individuals under the age of 21 who are in the vicinity of underage drinkers. Show up at the door of a party to offer a safe ride home to your indulging friends, and pay the price. Well, the meeting has now been held, and it looks as if the majority sentiment is to use the collective punishment technique only for kids 17 and younger. Naturally, the current law has its supporters, who think that it saves lives. Perhaps they are even right, but so might throwing the non-drinkers caught in the presence of drinkers in prison for two years -- so that argument is not dispositive. (For that matter, why not fine everyone in the town if any underage person is caught drinking? Such a measure would essentially convert every citizen of Naperville into a deputy law enforcer!) The mayor is a proponent of the current law, but for him, it's not about logic, it seems:

Mayor George Pradel, a former police officer, has been a staunch supporter of the law.

"Maybe we should be the first in the country to have this ordinance and maybe we should be the leader," he said. "Maybe it won't be popular, but I know in my heart it will be right."

Many other people, though, have hearts that "know" that collective punishments are problematic.

Labels: driving, Illinois, sentencing, teens

 
Vice Policy Commentary You Shouldn't Miss
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:12 PM

(1) Drug WarRant explains what bad laws are, and how one should behave in their presence. Shades of Thoreau, who in Civil Disobedience asked "Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?" His answer was that if the injustice of the law "is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law." But earlier in the same essay, Thoreau also noted the habit of subservience to the state:

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it [footnote omitted].

(2) OK, got carried away on that bad law theme. Last One Speaks updates the ongoing horrors at a "drug rehabilitation" center in Yekaterinburg, Russia. I didn't know it was still operating; if it is, they have been at this sadism for at least three years now. It's a private group, and ostensibly the "patients" have consented to the torture. [Incidentally, Yekaterinburg, known as Sverdlovsk during the Soviet period, is where Boris Yeltsin lived prior to his move to Moscow. It is also known for being the place where the last czar and his family were murdered. (The last czar, that is, not counting, well, the later ones.)]

(3) Last One Speaks also brings us word about the poker craze among our nation's youth. I have been suggesting blogging as a poker alternative, with few takers.

(4) We have not yet mentioned the tragic death of a quadriplegic while in custody in Washington, DC; he had been convicted of marijuana possession. He was given a ten-day jail sentence, but he only ended up serving half of it. He needed a ventilator while sleeping, it seems, but he wasn't provided one. D'Alliance has been particularly assiduous in keeping us informed as the details concerning the inmate's death emerge.

Labels: Drug WarRant, drugs, marijuana, poker, Russia, sentencing, teens, treatment

 
More Drug-Law Cruelty
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:37 PM

Our own anti-drug laws are so ridiculously draconian that I hesitate to take other countries to task for their own mindless severity. Nevertheless, Indonesia manages to regularly overcome my reluctance (on August 7, for example, or March 2). Today, via Crimlaw, we learn of a 27-year old Australian woman who apparently was intending a two-week vacation in Bali with her siblings. At the Bali airport, they found 4.2 kilos of pot in her belongings, and now this major trafficker has a potential death sentence facing her. Indonesia's behavior in drug cases should make it unwelcome in the community of nations -- except so much of that community differs but little from Indonesia in terms of drug-hysteria cruelty. Yes, Indonesia, your drug law enforcement probably makes it a little bit harder for some of your residents and visitors to consume a substance that they want to consume. Good for you. What a huge victory, costing, as it does, only any pretence you might have had to humanity or justice.

Labels: Asia, drugs, marijuana, sentencing

 
Chinese Penalties for Web Porn Purveyors
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:15 PM

Tyler Cohen at Marginal Revolution points us to this story about potential life sentences in prison for people in China convicted of distributing pornography over the web. In the US, porn production probably wouldn't lead to anything longer than a 50 year sentence.

Labels: China, internet, pornography, sentencing