The Criminal Lawyers Diaries



Federal drug laws create a labeling problem. When you hear the term "drug trafficker," you may consider Pablo Escobar or Walter White, but the reality is that under federal law, drug traffickers include individuals who purchase pseudo-ephedrine for their methamphetamine dealership; act as intermediary in a series of little transactions; or perhaps pick up a suitcase for the incorrect buddy. Thanks to conspiracy laws, everyone on the totem pole can be based on the exact same extreme necessary minimum sentences.

To the men and women who prepared our federal drug laws in 1986, this may come as a surprise. According to Sen. Robert Byrd, cosponsor of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, the reason to connect five- and ten-year compulsory sentences to drug trafficking was to penalize "the kingpins-- the masterminds who are really running these operations", and the mid-level dealerships.

Fast forward twenty-five years. Today, practically everyone founded guilty of a federal drug crime is founded guilty of "drug trafficking", which generally results in a minimum of a five- or ten-year compulsory jail sentence. That's a lot of time in federal jail for lots of people who are minor parts of drug trade, the vast bulk of whom are men and women of color.

This is the system that federal district Judge Mark Bennett sees every day. Judge Bennett sits on the district court in northern Iowa, and he manages a lot of drug cases., I would have sent 1,092 of my fellow people to federal prison for mandatory minimum sentences varying from sixty months to life without the possibility of release.

The numbers can't convey the ridiculous tragedy of all of it. This is how he describes a current drug trafficking case:

I www.criminallawyerslasvegas.com/drug-conspiracy-defense-las-vegas recently sentenced a group of more than twenty offenders on meth trafficking conspiracy charges. Eighteen were 'pill smurfers,' as federal district attorneys put it, indicating their function amounted to routinely purchasing and delivering cold medication to meth cookers in exchange for really small, low-grade amounts to feed their severe dependencies. All of them faced necessary minimum sentences of sixty or 120 months.



They discovered that in 2005, the majority of the lowest-level cocaine- and crack-trafficking defendants-- guys and females described as "street-level dealers", "couriers/mules", and "renter/loader/lookout/ enabler/users"-- got 5- or ten-year mandatory prison sentences. This is particularly true for crack-cocaine defendants, many of whom are black; regardless of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, selling a small amount of fracture drug (28 grams) brings the very same mandatory minimum sentence-- five years-- as offering 500 grams of powder drug.

This is the reality for which supporters of extreme federal drug laws must account. We must admit that our sentencing of small participants in the drug trade to jail terms suggested for the leaders of large drug organizations-- as a common incident, not as an exception.

If prolonged mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug addicts actually worked, one may be able to rationalize them. I have actually seen how they leave hundreds of thousands of young kids parent less and thousands of aging, infirm and passing away parents childless.

Here, again, we have evidence that Judge Bennett is right: long obligatory sentences are unneeded for a lot of drug transgressors. In 2002 and 2003, Michigan and New York repealed mandatory sentences for drug offenders and gave judges the power to impose shorter sentences, probation, or drug treatment.

He has actually seen necessary laws written for the most serious, large-scale drug dealers applied to the guys and ladies on the most affordable rungs of the drug trade, and he has actually seen it occur a lot. We as soon as envisioned that severe mandatory sentences would be used to deal with the leaders of large drug operations.

If you have been charged with a drug related offense and need qualified representation, contact us to discuss your case.

Contact:

Mace Yampolsky & Associates
625 S 6th St.
Las Vegas, NV 89101
(702) 385-9777



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