JUDGE SENT RIGHT MESSAGE

Our view: Even selling a small quantity of drugs is a serious crime. It
warrants a serious sentence.

Nineteen-year-old Brad Edelstein is a B student from a nice Middletown
neighborhood. He'd never been in trouble - until he was arrested for
selling drugs. Not a lot. Just a single dose of LSD.

That resume usually gets a first offender probation. But not Brad. He's
going to jail. Only for six days, but enough to send a message - to him and
anybody else who thinks that selling small quantities of drugs isn't a big
deal and therefore worth the risk. It also sends a message to people who
don't fit the drug-dealer stereotype and who think - too often, correctly -
that being white and middle class will or should make a difference if they
get busted.

Said Prosecutor Robert Mancini of Judge Kenneth Biehn's tough but
appropriate sentence: "With all the mitigating factors he had going for
him, this could have easily been a probation case. But when you look at the
crime, the only difference between this kid and a kid caught dealing crack
on the streets of Venice Ashby is this kid came to court wearing a suit and
tie."

Our commendations to the judge for seeing through the veneer.