CHULA VISTA, Calif. -- Eduardo Tostado was a prosperous man whose businesses and pleasures straddled the coastal border. He owned a big house and a used-car lot in the San Diego suburbs, and a seafood restaurant in Tijuana. He was also part of the border underworld, the authorities say -- a high-ranking member of the Mexican drug cartel driving much of the United States' illegal marijuana trade and the cascade of violence in a 40-year drug war. Some evenings, Mr. Tostado drank tequila at the Baby Rock club in Tijuana or sipped Scotch at the Airport Lounge in San Diego. He socialized mainly with men he knew well and women he knew not at all. [continues 2178 words]
LOS ANGELES -- There are more marijuana stores here than public schools. Signs emblazoned with cannabis plants or green crosses sit next to dry cleaners, gas stations and restaurants. The dispensaries range from Hollywood-day-spa fabulous to shoddy-looking storefronts with hand-painted billboards. Absolute Herbal Pain Solutions, Grateful Meds, Farmacopeia Organica. Cannabis advocates claim that more than 800 dispensaries have sprouted here since 2002; some law enforcement officials say it is closer to 1,000. Whatever the real number, everyone agrees it is too high. [continues 1386 words]
CORONA, Calif. -- Mary Thompson, an inmate at the California Institution for Women here, was convicted of two felonies for a robbery spree in which she threatened victims with a knife. Her third felony under California's three-strikes law was the theft of three tracksuits to pay for her crack cocaine habit in 1982. Like one out of five prisoners in California, and nearly 10 percent of all prisoners nationally in 2008, Ms. Thompson is serving a life sentence. She will be eligible for parole by 2020. [continues 1018 words]
LOS ANGELES -- The Police Department here has taken significant steps to root out corruption and reduce brutality and racially biased arrests, but it must still do more to eliminate racial disparities in police searches and the use of force, a court-appointed monitor testified on Monday. The department agreed to sweeping reforms in 2001 after the Justice Department found a pattern of police misconduct over a decade that included the videotaped beating of Rodney G. King in 1991 and the Rampart corruption scandal, which involved police officers' stealing illegal drugs, framing gang members and committing extortion. [continues 602 words]
LOS ANGELES -- A federal judge on Thursday sentenced the owner of a marijuana dispensary to a year in prison, a sign that providers of medical marijuana still face the possibility of jail time despite the Obama administration's promise not to prosecute them if they comply with state law. In imposing his sentence on Charles C. Lynch, who ran a dispensary in the surfing hamlet of Morro, Judge George H. Wu said the changed federal policy did not directly affect his ruling. But the judge talked at length about what he said were Mr. Lynch's many efforts to follow California's laws on marijuana dispensaries and the difficulty the judge had finding a loophole to avoid sending him to prison. [continues 502 words]
A senior Justice Department official urged Congress on Wednesday to lower the mandatory minimum prison sentence for the sale and possession of crack cocaine to match the punishment for powder cocaine, eliminating arbitrary sentencing disparities that have resulted in many more African-Americans' being jailed for longer terms. It was the first time such a high-level law enforcement official has endorsed legislation to eliminate inequities in cocaine sentencing. Barack Obama, while campaigning for the White House, had called for an end to the disparity. [continues 551 words]
LOS ANGELES -- Government lawyers asked a federal judge on Thursday to impose a five-year sentence on the owner of a marijuana dispensary, less than a month after Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that federal authorities would not prosecute owners of medical marijuana shops if they complied with local and state laws. But the United States attorney for the Central District of California, Thomas P. O'Brien, argued that the dispensary owner, Charles C. Lynch, had broken state laws because he was not a primary caregiver to his customers -- a requirement under California law -- and provided no medical services beyond the sale of marijuana. [continues 537 words]
Law enforcement officials are vastly expanding their collection of DNA to include millions more people who have been arrested or detained but not yet convicted. The move, intended to help solve more crimes, is raising concerns about the privacy of petty offenders and people who are presumed innocent. Until now, the federal government genetically tracked only convicts. But starting this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will join 15 states that collect DNA samples from those awaiting trial and will collect DNA from detained immigrants -- the vanguard of a growing class of genetic registrants. [continues 1098 words]
LOS ANGELES -- The air inside the Los Angeles Patients and Caregivers Group was pungent with the aroma of premium hydroponic marijuana, but the proprietor, Don Duncan, said on Thursday that he was breathing a bit easier. A day before, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had said that the federal authorities would no longer take action against medical marijuana dispensaries if they were in compliance with state and local laws. While 13 states, including California, have laws allowing medical use of marijuana, they had not been recognized by the federal government. One of Mr. Duncan's two marijuana dispensaries was a target, in 2007, of one of the scores of raids involving medical marijuana that the Drug Enforcement Administration conducted in Los Angeles during the Bush administration. [continues 676 words]
LAREDO, Tex. -- Inside a courthouse just north of the Rio Grande, federal judges mete out prison sentences to throngs of 40 to 60 illegal immigrants at a time. The accused, mostly from Central America, Brazil and Mexico, wear rough travel clothes that speak of arduous journeys: flannel shirts, sweat suits, jeans and running shoes or work boots. The prosecutors make quick work of the immigrants. Under a Justice Department program that relies on plea deals, most are charged with misdemeanors like improper entry. [continues 1441 words]
LOS ANGELES -- On Tuesday, California voters will consider three ballot measures that propose wide-ranging changes to the state's criminal justice system but also pit law enforcement officials against civil rights advocates. One initiative, Proposition 5, would increase financing for drug rehabilitation programs and reduce penalties for some drug- and addiction-related crimes. Another, Proposition 6, would increase financing for law enforcement and increase penalties for drug- and gang-related offenses. And a third, Proposition 9, would expand victims' roles in criminal and parole proceedings, prioritize restitution payments to victims and reduce the frequency of parole hearings for offenders. [continues 520 words]
(1) TRYING TO BREAK CYCLE OF PRISON AT STREET LEVEL Pubdate: Fri, 23 Nov 2007 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2007 The New York Times Company Author: Solomon Moore HOUSTON -- Corey Taylor, a convicted drug dealer, recently got out of prison and moved into his grandmother's house in Sunnyside, a south central Houston neighborhood of small, tidy yards. During his first days home, Mr. Taylor, 26, got a sharp reminder of the neighborhood's chronic problems. "Out of 10 of my partners, only one is doing anything different," he said, referring to his former drug-dealing companions. "I have some friends I haven't seen for 10 years because either I was locked up or they were locked up." [continues 6912 words]
HOUSTON -- Corey Taylor, a convicted drug dealer, recently got out of prison and moved into his grandmother's house in Sunnyside, a south central Houston neighborhood of small, tidy yards. During his first days home, Mr. Taylor, 26, got a sharp reminder of the neighborhood's chronic problems. "Out of 10 of my partners, only one is doing anything different," he said, referring to his former drug-dealing companions. "I have some friends I haven't seen for 10 years because either I was locked up or they were locked up." [continues 1318 words]
Crack cocaine offenders will receive shorter prison sentences under more lenient federal sentencing guidelines that went into effect yesterday. The United States Sentencing Commission, a government panel that recommends appropriate federal prison terms, estimated that the new guidelines would reduce the federal prison population by 3,800 in 15 years. The new guidelines will reduce the average sentence for crack cocaine possession to 8 years 10 months from 10 years 1 month. At a sentencing commission hearing in Washington on Nov. 13, members will consider whether to apply the guidelines retroactively to an estimated 19,500 crack cocaine offenders who were sentenced under the earlier, stricter guidelines. [continues 500 words]
OAKLAND, Calif. -- The names of friends and family members killed in this city over the last two years come easily to Rob Wilson, a rangy, dreadlocked 17-year-old gang member. A brother was shot to death in a drug deal in 2005. Oakland police officers killed a cousin in a shootout last year. Gang members shot down a friend in March. "It used to be I would just hear about somebody getting shot, but I wouldn't know them," said Mr. Wilson, who is known as Deka and who pulled up a pants leg to show a bullet wound from a shooting last year. "Now, it's getting closer and closer to me, these deaths." [continues 1031 words]
Motorists: Class Action Targets Officers Who Are Cracking Down On Drugs In Central California A federal class action lawsuit that charges that the California Highway Patrol uses racially biased patrolling standards is challenging fundamental drug war tactics in California. The lawsuit alleges that vehicles driven by black or Latino motorists are up to three times as likely as those driven by whites to be searched by state drug interdiction officers. The suit also charges that these officers routinely use intimidation, ruses and drivers' ignorance of their civil rights to obtain consent to search. [continues 1343 words]
La Crescenta: Residents Find That Their Upscale Foothills Enclave Is Not Immune To Teen Boredom, Involvement With Drugs. Parents move to La Crescenta for the schools, which are among the state's best. They settle here because the streets are clean, safe, shaded and gently sloped. They come to let their children skateboard through neighborhoods where people know each other--and each other's kids. Wedged between the San Gabriel Mountains to the north and the Verdugos to the south, partly in the city of Glendale and partly unincorporated, La Crescenta is a community with a sense of place. Parents say kids thrive here, sitting in treehouses, sprinting after each other with Super Soakers, marching up the hillsides to Blue Ribbon schools. [continues 1275 words]
