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.