Pubdate: Thu, 11 Apr 2002
Source: Ithaca Journal, The (NY)
Copyright: 2002, The Ithaca Journal
Contact: http://www.theithacajournal.com/news/letters.html
Website: http://www.theithacajournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1098
Author: George Dentes
Note: Dentes is Tompkins County's district attorney

SELLING NARCOTICS: IT'S A FELONY THAT DESERVES PUNISHMENT

Looking For Balance, Justice In The Current Drug Laws

The soap bubble arguments recently floated by those who want to change our 
drug laws compel me to pull out my pin.

First, regarding the claim of discrimination, the argument for change boils 
down to this: A disproportionate number of persons in prison on drug 
charges are black or Hispanic; therefore, our drug laws discriminate 
against blacks and Hispanics. I wonder if the persons making this argument 
are also willing to conclude that, because a disproportionate number of 
mobsters incarcerated for racketeering are Italian, our racketeering laws 
discriminate against Italians.

Brace yourself for a shock. The reason we have so many minority males in 
prison is that so many minority males are selling drugs. Note that I said 
"selling," not "using." Selling is a serious felony, whereas using is a 
misdemeanor. Sellers of narcotics generally go to prison, whereas users 
generally end up in treatment. It's sad to note, but the reality is that 
the most readily prosecutable form of drug selling, namely, street-level 
pushing, is primarily being committed by young minority males.

Our goal should not be to reduce minority incarceration per se, but to 
reduce destructive conduct. Drug pushing is highly destructive, and we must 
not trivialize it with powder puff punishments. Don't blame the law for 
law-breaking. The blame lies with whatever social forces cause so many of 
our young minority males to opt for the easy profits of drug selling over 
the challenges of education and employment.

Second, regarding Kim LaSelva, the poster mom for our local Drop The Rock 
movement, let's take a look at her situation. The police executed a search 
warrant at LaSelva's apartment on East Lincoln Street on the evening of 
March 9, 2000. In the bathroom, they found 5.3 ounces of cocaine. That was 
enough for 1,500 doses and had a street value of $30,000. The police also 
found plastic bags for packaging cocaine and an electronic scale for 
weighing it.

The only persons in the apartment when the police entered were two young 
boys, one age 8 years and the other age 16 months. In the bedroom, a candle 
had been left burning and a large second-story window had been left open, 
with a steep drop to the ground below. The two children were LaSelva's to 
care for, but she was not home. She was at a tavern across the street where 
the police arrested her as she sat at the bar drinking and smoking. She was 
eight months pregnant at the time.

LaSelva was charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, 
with criminal possession of a controlled substance, and with criminal 
possession of drug paraphernalia. Her "defense" was that the drugs belonged 
to her boyfriend, not to her. That was really no defense at all, because 
the law does not care about ownership, but only about possession, which is 
defined in terms of control sufficient to give a person the ability to use 
or dispose of the drugs.

LaSelva was the tenant of the apartment. Her boyfriend was no longer living 
there. She was aware of the drugs, and she could have destroyed them, but 
instead permitted her home to be a drug storage site. She was a knowing 
accomplice to drug trafficking, and her guilt was absolutely clear.

We took into account that LaSelva was not the prime mover in the drug 
operation, so we made a plea offer that would require only a short prison 
stay. She accepted and pleaded guilty, admitting in open court that she 
knew the drugs were in her apartment. She ultimately served a little less 
than a year of combined local and state time before she was paroled.

LaSelva now suggests that she pleaded guilty out of concern for the welfare 
of her children. Nonsense! She pleaded guilty because she was guilty, and 
because she was offered a plea bargain guaranteeing her a lesser sentence 
than she would receive if she went to trial and lost.

When making that decision she probably considered the things she would miss 
while incarcerated, including her children, but take the children out of 
the equation and pleading guilty was still the only rational choice.

Finally, for those who decry mandatory jail terms and say that judges 
should have more discretion to impose alternative sentences, let's pause 
for an update on Anthony Woods. He was the defendant convicted here last 
year of selling cocaine on eight different occasions, at shopping centers 
downtown and in the northeast.

Exercising the broad discretion given to him, and rejecting the 
prosecution's request for a longer sentence, the judge sentenced Woods in 
August to a state prison term that was sufficiently light to assure his 
eligibility for early parole after six months of shock incarceration. That 
has indeed come to pass. Woods was released on parole in March.

If you think that's a good result, ask yourself how you would feel if Woods 
had received a sentence assuring no possibility of parole before serving 15 
years, as the broad discretion afforded to the judge permitted. If you 
think that would be too much, then you are not truly in favor of judicial 
discretion; you are just in favor of light sentences for drug crimes.

Therein lies the true agenda of those who would change our drug laws. They 
want no one to go to jail, because they simply do not believe that drugs 
are a sufficiently evil thing to warrant incarceration. That is an issue 
worth discussing.

Does our society wish to continue condemning drugs with punishments that 
include jail terms, or have we come to the point where we are going to 
reduce drugs to some sort of bad habit that is punished only when others 
are put at risk, like the situation with alcohol and drunk driving?

Let the discussion begin, but please, no nonsense about racial 
discrimination, unjustly incarcerated mothers, and inadequate judicial 
discretion.
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MAP posted-by: Beth