{news} Thornton qouted in Article in CT Law Tribune

[clifford thornton]

http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?ID=23464<http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?ID=23464>

Monday, August 28, 2006
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War On Crack Cocaine Is An Absolute Crock

By NORM PATTIS
A client of mine recently elected to go to trial in a criminal case. Evidence in this drug conspiracy case won't begin until later in the fall. But already, I have this sinking feeling that slaughter is coming. Even so, I understand his choice.
On a plea, this 33-year-old man is looking at a sentence in the range of 20 or more years. Should he lose trial, he will do life. From where he sits today there seems but little difference.

The case against him is simple, straightforward and illustrative of how the state/federal narcotics task force in Connecticut operates. Rumor swirls about a drug operation. Agents swoop in with wiretap orders, surveillance photos, a confidential informant or two, and then wait patiently for the conspirators to produce enough evidence against themselves to make a conviction almost inevitable.

The slam dunk of a case is presented to a federal grand jury, indictments follow, and then the defendants are, one by one, encouraged to wet themselves. The not so subtle message? The only way to save yourself a long stretch in Club Fed is to testify against the others. Many defendants do.
Why are we doing this?

My sense is that alcohol kills more people than cocaine. Yet we regulate alcohol and serve it publicly. Tobacco kills even bystanders with second-hand smoke, but we sell it happily, and tax it, too. Don't tell me we wage war on crack because it kills. Tobacco kills. Alcohol kills. Yet no war there.

A fellow named Cliff Thornton is running for governor on the Green Party ticket. The primary plank in his platform: The drug war is a failure. When Thornton is candid he will share his suspicion that we wage war on drugs and not on alcohol and tobacco for reasons related to race. I agree with Thornton. So I prepare for my next skirmish in the war on drugs. Another black soul on the block.
My client is looking at life for selling a drug common in every city of the state. The government offers a plea deal that is no deal at all. It makes no sense.

Here is the grim reality in federal drug cases, a reality that Congress and the courts seem unwilling to correct: Sentencing for distribution of crack cocaine is far more draconian than sentencing for cocaine in its powdered form. In this case, my client would face a several years as a sentence for sale of powdered cocaine, but several decades for the sale of crack.

My client has been charged with possession with intent to sell cocaine base. What is cocaine base, you say? The statute defining the crime doesn't really say. The federal sentencing guidelines define cocaine base as crack, however, despite the silence in the statute. Indeed, cocaine base may include non-crack cocaine as well.There is split in the circuits about what to do with this. Some circuits, but not our circuit. The Second Circuit applies tougher penalties to any form of cocaine base, whether it is crack or not. For you non-chemists out there, this means that our circuit calls cocaine base all cocaine substances that produce a salt when treated with acid. This is a view not shared by several other circuits, notably the fourth, seventh, eight and eleventh.

So what is the significance of all this? My client wants to gamble his future, every last day of it, on the prospect of getting his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. He wants that court to say that, in his case, what was at issue was cocaine base and not crack. He wants the court to say that the lower courts are wrong to sentence savagely for all forms of cocaine base.

It is a long shot, the client understands. But the government has given him no choice at all. Perhaps a jury will make all this moot. So begins nights of worry. Another skirmish in the war on drugs. .

Norm Pattis practices criminal and civil rights law in Bethany. 




  Thornton for Governor
  PO Box 1971
  Manchester, CT 06045
  votethornton at yahoogroups.com<mailto:votethornton at yahoogroups.com>
  www.votethornton.com<http://www.votethornton.com/>
  860 657 8438-H
  860 268 1294-C
  860 778 1304-Tim Mckee-Campaign Manager
  860 293 0222-Ken Krayeske-field Manager
  Paid for by Thornton For Governor
  Donna L. Byrne-Mckee, Treasure


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