Pubdate: Sat, 25 Aug 2001
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2001 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www.boston.com/globe/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Ralph Ranalli, Brian MacQuarrie

SENTENCING DESERVES STUDY, SPECIALISTS SAY

Although race might affect the distribution of justice in Massachusetts, 
legal observers yesterday said the disparate sentences given recently to 
black and white defendants in Cambridge might not be a good example of the 
problem.

The sentences for drug offenses - six months in prison for a black man; 
probation for the white defendant - were cited by Cambridge District Court 
Judge Severlin B. Singleton III as an egregious example of racially 
distorted justice.

Singleton said the cases, prosecuted by Middlesex District Attorney Martha 
Coakley's office, ''strained my notion of ... equal justice'' more than any 
others he had witnessed in 11 years on the bench.

However, legal observers said that racially unbalanced justice in 
Massachusetts is difficult to illustrate with two examples.

''To just take two cases and try to make an issue out of them is, 
statistically, not a good thing,'' said Robert A. Barton, a former 
Middlesex Superior Court judge. ''It appeals to a lot of people's emotions, 
but you can't support an accusation like that based on two cases.''

The defendants - Bertrand Lamitie, a black Somerville man, and Jared 
Cedrone, a white Salem man - were arrested with relatively small amounts of 
cocaine in a Cambridge school zone.

But prosecutors said Lamitie, even though he was a first offender, clearly 
intended to sell crack cocaine, and Cedrone, although he was a repeat 
offender, appeared to be a user rather than a dealer.

''I don't know if any indictment of any particular prosecutor is in 
order,'' said Jack McDevitt, a Northeastern University professor who has 
studied sentencing and racial profiling extensively. Singleton, he said, 
''was probably articulating a frustration that a lot of people feel.''

The judge wrote in an unusually harsh criticism of Coakley's office that 
''the facts of the cases cannot justify the disparate sentence 
recommendations. ... I find that the disparity in the sentence 
recommendations is based on race.''

Both defendants were arrested within 1,000 feet of a school, a charge that 
carries a minimum mandatory two-year sentence. The severity of the penalty 
often sways suspects to plead guilty to reduced charges, with shorter 
amounts of prison time, Singleton wrote.

Michael J. Traft, a Boston defense lawyer and member of a sentencing study 
commission, said the two cases illustrate how mandatory minimum sentences 
transfer the discretion from judges to prosecutors.

''The tool [mandatory minimums] gives them the control, and they can use 
that as a club against the defendant,'' Traft said.

Page Kelley, a public defender in Cambridge, said she does not believe 
Coakley would allow race to influence her decisions.

''I am sure that no one in their entire office intentionally discriminates 
on the basis of race,'' Kelley said. However, she added, the impact of race 
''is systemic. The whole system ... is totally stacked against people of 
color. We see it every day, and I guess Judge Singleton does, too.''

McDevitt said the issue of drug sentencing ''deserves serious study.'' One 
study is underway in Boston, where a task force that includes Suffolk 
District Attorney Ralph C. Martin II, Police Commissioner Paul Evans, 
judges, and academics is examining the disposition of drug cases in all 
district courts in the city.
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