I’LL KEEP ’EM OUT OF THE JOINT: JUDGE
Won’t jail parolees on pot
This is a really high court decision.
A maverick Brooklyn federal judge on Thursday decreed that he will no longer throw recently released convicts back behind bars when they’re caught smoking pot.
In a 42-page decision, 96year-old jurist Jack Weinstein wrote that since supervised release is meant to rehabilitate, not punish, former inmates, sticking them back in the slammer for toking up will only thwart any progress they’ve made on the outside.
And besides, all the kids are doing it now.
“Marijuana use, through law, policy and social custom, is becoming increasingly accepted in society,” wrote Weinstein, who is a liberal appointee of President Lyndon B. Johnson and first took the bench in 1967.
“For some supervisees, who are otherwise rehabilitated, a marijuana habit can derail progress as they end up in an almost neverending cycle where they oscillate between jail and supervision.
“Effectively, courts are faced with a choice: imprison a marijuana user on supervised release or cut short supervision, forcing an attempt at further rehabilitation on the supervisee’s own,” continued Weinstein, the longest sitting judge in the state.
Marijuana use, which is illegal under federal law, is a violation of supervised release and would typically require incarceration.
Anti-marijuana laws are on the books in New York state as well, but Mayor de Blasio announced in May that he wants the NYPD to stop arresting those blazing in public and instead issue summonses.
Weinstein’s tokin’ gesture came as he reviewed the case of Tyran Trotter, 22, who served two years behind bars for heroin possession with intent to distribute.
Trotter, a member of the Bloods-related Paper Chasing Goons gang, violated the conditions of his three years of supervised release when he was busted getting baked.
But instead of revoking his release, Weinstein — a lifelong New Yorker who grew up in Brighton Beach — said he was terminating supervision of the Queens man completely, writing that “its continuation would inhibit rehabilitation.”
“He must attempt to lead a productive life on his own,” the judge said.
It was hardly the first time Weinstein’s rogue decisions have left people wondering what he’s smoking.
A decade ago, he declared a mistrial in an attempt to get around a mandatory minimum five-year sentence for a man convicted of possessing child pornography that he felt was too “harsh.”
Weinstein had to accept the sentence a few years later but declared it “grossly excessive” and unconstitutional.
He has since doled out wrist slaps to several other kiddie-porn-watching creeps.
Last month, he let an ISIS turncoat walk free, saying the jihadi informant “will be doing much more for society than if a prison sentence were imposed.”
Weinstein famously refuses to wear judicial robes or sit at the judge’s bench — instead joining litigants around the courtroom.