A new study in Florida shows that whites are more likely to be offered plea bargains than African-Americans.

White criminal offenders in Florida are nearly 50 percent more likely than blacks to get a ''withhold of adjudication,'' a plea deal that blocks their felony convictions even though they plead to the crime. White Hispanics are 31 percent more likely than blacks to get a withhold.

The disparity in outcomes has cost thousands of black offenders their civil rights, including the right to vote, serve on juries, hold public office, own a firearm. And the convictions carry an economic penalty: Felons can't be hired for many government jobs, and they can't apply for some student loans.

There are differing views on why the disparity exists. Reasons aren't the issue.

Canada is planning on providing free heroin to its addicts. A fix or folly?

Canada plans to follow the lead of other countries and start giving free heroin to the most desperate addicts. While the experiment seems outrageous to some, it actually revives a very old medical practice that met its demise early last century when law enforcement wrestled the issue of drugs away from doctors.

Link via Drug War Rant.

Here's the New Governor Arnie. He's willing to support parole, and is on track to review his first death penalty case.

Next month, he is likely to face his first decision on the death penalty, a practice that he has said he generally supports. The next convict in line to be put to death is seeking clemency and has the support of groups that oppose capital punishment. They are planning statewide demonstrations to urge Schwarzenegger to spare his life. And that is only the beginning of the pressures the new governor has begun to face on the issue of crime and punishment.

California runs the nation's largest penal system, housing more than 160,000 convicts. It also has some of the country's toughest and most controversial sentencing laws, including a "three strikes" measure that can put a third-time felony offender in jail for life even for a nonviolent crime such as theft. And by many accounts, the state agency that oversees prisons is mired with problems.

A federal report issued this month called it beset with management corruption and rogue prison guards. Last fall, state investigators also denounced California's parole policies as a "billion-dollar failure" because most released inmates end up back behind bars. At a hearing convened last week to examine the troubles plaguing prisons, state senators called California's penal system a "tarnished institution" in dire need of reform.

His administration, facing a $14 billion budget shortfall and desperate to find savings, may restructure parole policies in ways that would return fewer parolees to prison for minor violations of the terms of their release. It also is considering easing sentencing laws for some nonviolent offenders. Both of those moves could save California several hundred million dollars a year.

All good moves, Arnie.

by TChris

A clash between federal supremacy and states' rights is heating up in Colorado. Attorneys for federal agents who refuse to follow a state court order to return confiscated marijuana to a medical patient have asked a judge to dismiss a motion seeking to hold the agents in contempt. TalkLeft has written about the case here and here.

Don Nord was entitled under Colorado law to possess the marijuana as medicine. When no charges were filed after the marijuana and other items were seized during the execution of a search warrant, Routt County Judge James Garrecht ordered everything returned to Nord, including two ounces of marijuana. Federal officers returned everything but the two ounces of pot, citing the status of marijuana as contraband under federal law.

In response to a motion asking that the agents be held in contempt for failing to return the marijuana, Justice Department lawyers have asked for the contempt proceedings to be dismissed. They wrote:

"It is not the intent of officers or agents of the U.S. to violate state law in the performance of their duties or to ignore orders of state court judges. In this instant, regrettably, such violation was mandated by federal law, a circumstance that is unfortunate and rare."

The government lawyers wrote that the agents were required to follow federal law in the performance of their job duties, and that they might be subject to discipline, including termination, if they obeyed the court order.

Nord's attorney, Kristopher Hammond, is not persuaded by the government's response.

"If they didn't like the judge's order to return the marijuana, they should have appealed that order. They didn't and I believe that every court has the right to enforce its orders.

"We all have to obey court orders even if we don't like them. Sounds to me like they're being a bunch of crybabies."

Hammond makes a good point. In a society based on the rule of law, the proper response to a court order the government considers to be flawed is to appeal the order, not to disobey it.

by TChris

Noting that 600,000 inmates will be released from prison this year, President Bush proposed in his State of the Union address "a four-year, $300 million prisoner re-entry initiative to expand job training and placement services, to provide transitional housing, and to help newly released prisoners get mentoring, including from faith-based groups." As Bush recognized, "America is the land of second chance, and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life."

Federal District Court Judge Nancy Gertner applauds the thought, but is concerned that Bush's proposal is "too little, too late."

The problem is that the policies our government has implemented, long before those prison gates are open, undermine a prisoner's opportunity for a second chance. Too many prisoners are serving sentences that are too long under conditions that are not remotely conducive to rehabilitation. We must change our approach long before reentry.

In fact, Bush's $300 million initiative reminds me of a homeowner who, midwinter, turns up the thermostat but leaves the front door open. It seems like a great idea, but it misses the real problems.

Judge Gertner notes that legislation requiring lengthy prison terms, while politically popular, actually makes the crime problem worse. Offenders come out prison with no job skills and no job prospects, resulting in the destruction of communities and the decimation of families "that are already struggling, especially in our inner-cities. And from those decimated communities comes more crime."

Drawing upon her visits to the programs that the federal Probation Office uses to support the efforts of ex-offenders to restart their lives, and upon her observation of the policies and practices of the Bureau of Prisons, Judge Gertner concludes that the President's call for a "reentry" program sounds laudable, but is in essence "a cruel joke in a society where the race to punish has made it next to impossible for ex-offenders to get public assistance or qualify for a host of government programs." In Judge Gertner's view, the President's proposal is undermined by harsh sentences and by prison philosophies that emphasize punishment over rehabilitation. She makes a persuasive argument that "Reentry should begin at sentencing, and not a moment later."

Judge Gertner bases her forceful argument on experience and insight. She's right, and her editorial is well worth reading.

We couldn't have said it better ourselves --from the blog at TomPaine.com:

It looked like President Bush hadn't done his homework when he announced during his State of the Union speech a new $23 million initiative to reduce student drug use by expanding drug testing. But the largest-ever study examining drug testing—funded by the federal government—concluded earlier this year that drug testing has no effect on student drug use. Drug testing can actually do more harm than good, according to the ACLU and The Drug Policy Alliance: it humiliates students, undermines trust between students and adult mentors and discourages participation in extracurriculars—the only thing proven to actually reduce drug use rates. And since 95 percent of schools currently do not drug-test their students, it's unlikely that those declines Bush touted had anything to do with drug testing. The $23 million could be put to much better use—including hiring substance-abuse counselors at high schools and making prevention, rather than punishment, the primary focus.

Drug War Rant has lot's more, including facts, figures and links:

$23 million for children's piss. Sound like some kind of perverse pedophiliac penuniary pursuit? No, it's the President of the United States, putting forth the notion that the world will be a better place if we spend $23 million to force children to pee in a cup. Stupid.

We warned this was coming back in October.

Monday's Los Angeles Times takes an in-depth look at hemp in The Demonized Seed (free subscription required):

As a Recreational Drug, Industrial Hemp Packs the Same Wallop as Zucchini. Why Does the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Continue to Deny America This Potent Resource? Call It Reefer Madness.

The facts:

Because they're often used interchangeably, the terms cannabis, hemp and marijuana can be confusing. While cannabis encompasses all varieties of the species, hemp, often called industrial hemp, has come to mean a few dozen nonintoxicating varieties of cannabis bred and cultivated for commercial ends: clothing, paper, food, biofuels, biodegradable plastic, building materials, automobile parts, insulators, paints, lubricants—the list of possibilities goes on.

Marijuana, on the other hand, refers strictly to the cannabis drug plant, of which there exist endless varieties differentiated by the amount of intoxicating substances they contain, notably tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Today virtually all strains of cannabis are the product of human alteration, manipulated by scientists, breeders and drug dealers to increase or decrease THC content and other characteristics to suit their purposes.

Excellent article today in the Los Angeles Times questioning Congress' over-federalizaton of common crimes in recent years (free subscription required):

Robbers, pimps, wife-beaters, deadbeat dads and carjackers all have been targeted by Congress. These offenses could be prosecuted locally. The federal government has broadly extended its power in recent decades to fight common crimes, from murder to unpaid child support, and critics say needless federal prosecutions waste money, jeopardize civil rights and divert law enforcement from true national threats.

Such cases "clog the federal courts and utilize very limited federal resources in matters that are being prosecuted very well by local authorities," said former U.S. Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, who chaired a 1998 study sponsored by the American Bar Assn.

....Many other common crimes once handled by states — including rape, drug trafficking and murder — have also come under federal authority over the years. Congress has created so many national crimes in so many sections of legal code that no one has an exact count. There are about 3,500, according to legal surveys. More than 45% have come onto the books since 1970, around when President Nixon declared the first national war on crime.

An earlier, no-subscription version of the article is available here.

Ok, what are we missing? A Virginia man buys an orchid at a Peruvian roadside stand. He brings it back to the U.S., to a botanical gardens in Florida, to be examined. It turns out to be one of the rarest orchids in the world and illegal to import.

The penalty? The Virginia man is facing up to six years in prison for illegally importing and possessing the flower. He has pleaded not guilty.

The owner of the botanical gardens who identified the orchid pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of "accepting and handling the flower" and was fined $5,000.00. A horticulturist also pleaded guilty in a plea deal specifying house arrest for six months, probation for a year and a $2,000 fine.

Why the heavy penalties for one flower? It doesn't even appear that anyone was trying to sell or profit from the orchid. Why not just confiscate the flower and return it to Peru? Was criminal prosecution really necessary? We understand the principle of deterrence but this sure seems like overkill.

Sometimes the most satisfaction comes from reading something we agree with when it comes from someone with a usually opposite viewpoint. That's the case today with Joe Kelley of For the Sake of Argument. Today he writes about the child molester killed in his prison cell this week in Virginia. Yes, the guy was guilty. But his death in prison is unjust. Joe says:

I know it’s not popular to argue this, but Ausley was NOT given a judicial death sentence. Yet, due to the incompetence of the Virginia Department of Corrections, he got one anyway.

Understandably, few wish to vocally advocate the rights of convicted criminals. But, when you’re an inmate in a state correctional facility, the state becomes your custodian. They’re charged with feeding, clothing, rehabilitating (yeah, right), and protecting your health and safety.

Inept correctional officers marginalized the entire Constitutionally established United States judicial process. What’s the point of a state paying to prosecute (and defend in many cases), taking the time from peers to establish a jury, and paying to incarcerate if it could all so quickly be made worthless?

The New York Times today has this portrait of one federal judge's frustration and struggle with an unjust mandatory minimum sentence in a particular case. The Judge did not speak to the press--the reporter put the story together from pleadings and transcripts. It aptly describes what Congress has done to our federal sentencing system: it has removed sentencing decisions from experienced judges appointed by the president and turned them over to prosecutors.

The defendant's crime was grave: Using the screen name BigThing, he sent thousands of images of child pornography to people who answered his advertisement in an Internet chat room. And a federal judge responded with a heavy sentence, 10 years in prison. But even as he handed down the penalty, Judge Gerard E. Lynch angrily denounced his own decision.

"This is without question the worst case of my judicial career," he said. The "unjust and harmful" sentence, he added, "has the potential to do disastrous damage to someone who himself is not much more than a child."

A word about Judge Gerard Lynch. He is hardly a left-wing jurist-- he served as Chief of the Criminal Division in the Southern District of New York and, we are told, is probably as respected as anyone in the New York legal community for his intelligence and judgment. He tried to talk some sense into the prosecutors, they wouldn't listen. He ruled that the jury would be instructed that the teen would receive a mandatory ten year sentence if convicted. The prosecution appealed the ruling before trial and won. The case went to trial. The teen was convicted and Judge Lynch, as required, sentenced him to ten years. Judge Lynch also noted that had the teen's crime been having sex with a 12 year old, as opposed to swapping downloaded child porn images, he would only have faced a five year sentence.

There is an excellent column in the Chicago Sun Times today addressing the injustice of sentences handed out to small time drug offenders in comparison to sentences meted out to Enron-type offenders . Where's the justice?

...criminals in the Enron case won't spend a fraction of the time behind bars that judges order most drug offenders to spend. Some people would argue there are actually two justice systems: one for them and one for us. Certainly, white collar criminals are dealt with less harshly compared to non-violent drug offenders.

Look at the prison time most drug offenders face. Some of them have been sentenced to life terms, even though they haven't committed a heinous crime or murdered anyone.

'60 Minutes' last week featured a segment on mandatory minimum sentences in drug cases.

What passes for a drug king in 99 percent of the cases is nothing more than a young man who can't even afford a lawyer when he's hauled into court," Judge Patrick Murphy told correspondent Ed Bradley. "I've seen very few drug kings."