One local lawyer has a big problem with how drug cases are handled in Mercer County
Nothing pleases me more than seeing an envelope without a return address sitting at my desk. It means one of two things.
1) Someone who is a certifiable loon is sending me notes they scribbled while affixing lingerie to the mannequin they keep in their cellar and refer to, invariably, as “mother.” These letters go in the drawer marked “In the case of my untimely demise …”
Then there’s the second type ... 2) Someone has an interesting story to tell but wants, for the time being at least, to remain anonymous.
This story falls into the second category, where a respected local attorney, in a series of letters, is pretty much accusing the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office of racism when it comes to sentencing drug offenders.
It’s a whopper of a story, so I immediately reached out for comment to the attorney, and he gave me a standard “no comment.” Which makes me wonder: Did he send me the material? Impossible to say. All I know is someone saw fit to get it to me. As a result of this, I’m going to leave names out of the rest of this column. Maybe names will surface eventually. Maybe they won’t. But in the meantime, it’s pretty clear to me the attorney who wrote the letters has a valid enough point, racerelated or not.
“I wish to bring to your attention how your office is treating minority defendants differently from white defendants in certain S.I.U. cases,” begins a letter dated Sept. 28 to the prosecutor’s office.
The letter refers back to one from two weeks earlier, in which the attorney discussed the case of his client, an African-American man who was caught with 5.5 ounces of ecstasy, or about 475 tablets. Let’s assume each tablet was worth $20. Figure he had about $10,000 worth of ecstasy. A lot, in other words, though just barely hitting the threshold for first degree possession with intent to distribute. That’s worth up to 20 years in state prison, and judging by the letters, the prosecutor’s office wasn’t offering anything other than jail time.
The letter also refers to another case in Mercer County. White guy. He was caught with over 80 pounds of marijuana. That’s also a first degree case. His stash had a street value of over $900,000. Tons of edibles and other products. The guy had a website. Was selling it all over the place.
He ended up in drug court, which is supposed to be used for drug users who commit nonviolent crimes. In the end, it amounted to 5 years probation.
To be clear: White dude busted with $900,000 worth of weed = a probation deal. Black dude busted with $10,000 worth of ecstasy (and no priors, for what it’s worth) = three hots and a cot.
There is something wrong here. Is it race? Could be, I guess, but that’s a dangerous game for the attorney to play. Is it the type of drug being sold? Well, maybe, but I personally know people who have been caught a lot less than $900,000 worth of marijuana who didn’t get such good deals.
Is there more to the story? Undoubtedly, but all I’ve got is all I’ve got. That, and a drawful of nutjobs.
Now I will say this: I don’t have a horse in this race, outside of believing drug prohibition, of all kinds, should end so we could stop dealing with this nonsense. Drugs (like marijuana) should just be legal, and other mostly harmless drugs (like ecstasy) should be regulated, and the nasty stuff (like heroin) should be doctor-prescribed. I also believe that if this happens, anyone dealing in the black market should get the death penalty, thereby eliminating the black market. I’m a criminal justice guru, clearly.
But until the state comes around to my simple plan, we’re going to have to deal with drug dealers, prosecutor’s offices, and punishment.
And as I read these letters that were sitting on my chair, the one thing clearly being dealt is some unfairness. No way one guy should be allowed to walk while another goes to jail when they’re both facing first degree crimes. That seems obvious enough.