Pubdate: Thu, 10 Aug 2000
Source: Philadelphia Daily News (PA)
Copyright: 2000 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.
Contact:  http://www.phillynews.com/
Forum: http://interactive.phillynews.com/talk-show/
Author:  Jim Smith, Daily News Staff Writer

NEW COURT RULE GIVES DOPE DEALERS A BREAK

Two big-time Philadelphia marijuana dealers, who authorities say were
dealing in veritable tons of pot, can thank a recent U.S. Supreme
Court decision for cutting their prison time in half.

And hundreds of other convicts are hoping the new rules bode as well
for them, defense attorneys said yesterday.

In the first criminal case in the area to be affected by the Supreme
Court's recent decision, water-ice dealer Lenwood Malachi was
sentenced to five years in prison, and co-defendant David J.
Fitzgerald, a dry-cleaner, was jailed for 10 years for conspiring to
traffic in pot.

Their prison time would have been twice as long, said U.S. District
Judge Harvey Bartle III, if they had been sentenced prior to June,
when the nation's highest court changed the way criminal cases must be
handled in the federal courts.

In June, in a case called Apprendi vs. New Jersey, a sharply divided
Supreme Court held that certain factors, such as drug quantities,
which in the past were used to increase a defendant's punishment, must
be proven at trial and not left to a sentencing judge.

Many inmates convicted of crimes, especially in drug cases, now are
expected to try to use the new rule to win reduced prison terms.

Malachi and Fitzgerald, both 48, were convicted by Bartle of
involvement in a drug trafficking conspiracy last February following a
nonjury trial.

The conspiracy lasted between late 1993 and September 1998, although
Malachi dropped out in 1996.

The judge found that Malachi, formerly of Anderson Street near Vernon
Road, was responsible for 3,154 pounds of pot, which put his
sentencing guidelines in the 10-to-12-year range.

Fitzgerald, operator of a dry cleaning business on Cumberland Street
near 12th in North Philadelphia, was responsible for 5,841 pounds of
the weed, the judge said, and, under the old law, faced a mandatory
20-year term because of a prior drug conviction.

Since the quantities hadn't been proven at trial, the judge said he
had no choice but to find each defendant responsible for less than 50
kilograms of marijuana, or 110 pounds.
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