JUDGE RAPS DA OFFICE ON RACE, SENTENCING

A judge has accused Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley's office of
recommending tougher sentences for black defendants, saying prosecutors'
recent treatment of two drug cases -- involving white and black defendants
- -- "strained my notion of justice, equal justice."

Cambridge District Judge Severlin B. Singleton III wrote, "Harsh drug
sentencing policies are having a vastly disproportionate effect on
African-Americans and Hispanics in Massachusetts."

Coakley denied the accusation in a written statement yesterday.

In his five-page opinion on Aug. 10, Singleton challenged prosecutors to
explain why they recommended six months in jail for Bertrand Lamitie, a
24-year-old black Cambridge man with no prior record, who pleaded guilty to
possessing one bag containing 16 pieces of crack cocaine with intent to
sell. Singleton went along with the recommendation July 31, sending Lamitie
to jail for six months.

The next day, Singleton heard prosecutors recommend a three-year suspended
sentence for a white defendant, Jared Cedrone, also of Cambridge, who had
six prior convictions, and had pleaded guilty to possessing six bags of
powdered cocaine.

Both Lamitie and Cedrone had been charged with selling drugs within 1,000
feet of a school, a crime that carries a mandatory minimum two-year prison
term, but prosecutors had dropped that charge in both cases under plea
agreements.

"The facts of these cases cannot justify the disparate sentence
recommendations for the above two defendants," Singleton wrote. "Therefore
I find that the disparity in the sentence recommendations is based on race."

Firing back a four-page response yesterday, Coakley defended her office as
colorblind, writing, "I categorically deny that race ever entered into the
complicated calculus applied to reach a fair plea negotiation, bargain, and
ultimately a sentence imposed by the court.

"While the court now sees only black and white, our focus was clearly on
seller and user," Coakley wrote.

The district attorney said she stands by her office's recommendation in
both cases.

Singleton said that even though Lamitie had no criminal record, he had
"reluctantly" sent him to a jail. But the judge added that, in light of the
Cedrone case, he was ordering Lamitie's sentence stayed.

"Justice requires no less," wrote Singleton, also adding, "No other case or
cases during my 11 years sitting as a judge have so strained my notion of
justice, equal justice...."

Singleton noted that the Hispanic state-prison admission rate for drug
offenses is 81 times higher than the white rate; the black rate is 39 times
the white rate.

Singleton, 52, has served as a justice of the Cambridge District Court
since 1989. Before that, he spent nine years working as general counsel for
the Massachusetts Office of Affirmative Action and as legal counsel for the
city of Cambridge.

He also served in 1979 and 1980 as an assistant district attorney in
Middlesex County, and as a staff lawyer at the Massachusetts Commission
Against Discrimination.

Singleton attended Northeastern University and Northeastern University
School of Law.

He has been outspoken on matters of race in the justice system before.

"We have all heard that justice is blind," Singleton said in 1991, to a
commission set up by the Supreme Judicial Court to study racial and ethnic
bias in the courts. "I'm here to state that racism has eaten a large hole
in her blindfold, because Lady Justice can distinguish between black and
white."

Reaction to Singelton's accusations and Coakley's response were mixed
yesterday. Most of those interviewed could not recall a judge being so
forward and accusatory on the issue of race bias in the state courts.

Coakley, who was taken off guard, said, "It came as a surprise in the sense
that we had no prior indication from the court ... that there was
dissatisfaction."

In her response to Singleton, she wrote: "There is burden of proof attached
to any allegations this office makes in any case, and for good reason.

The court has made an allegation in these matters which is serious, and if
true, egregious, but if unsubstantiated, which we believe, it now creates a
very difficult atmosphere where most try to work constructively."

Lamitie's attorney, Eddie J. Jenkins Jr., said his client's case was likely
"the last straw" for Singleton, whom he called "a man of conviction" who
has put his judicial career at risk though this ruling.

"He could be cutting off his possibilities at advancement through this,"
Jenkins said. "But he's not about self-interest, but about simple justice
for all people."

Jenkins said Lamitie's sentencing lasted three entire days, "probably the
longest sentencing I've ever seen." He said the judge, in his ruling and
his comments from the bench, was also perplexed by federal and some state
sentencing guidelines that call for harsher prison time for crack cocaine
as opposed to powdered cocaine.

Massachusetts law makes no distinction between the two, Jenkins said.

Neither Cedrone nor his lawyer could be reached for comment.

Criminal defense attorney Martin Weinberg said Singleton's accusation is
indicative of the political and judicial system's need to address racial
disparity that arises because, under federal law, drug crimes involving
crack cocaine are treated so much more severely than similar crimes
involved the powdered form of the drug.

"Certainly, Martha Coakley's office is not alone in valuing crack as more
severe than powdered cocaine.

She's supported by this nation's Congress," Weinberg said. "It's a social
and political problem that demands redressing."

He added, however, that stiff sentencing has done little to temper the
nation's raging drug problem.

"I commend Judge Singleton's skepticism that any first offender involved in
a small amount of drugs, regardless of the nature of the substance, ought
to be imprisoned," Weinberg said.

James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University, said race is
sometimes a factor in sentencing recommendations, albeit an illegitimate
factor. But other circumstances could also distinguish between Lamitie and
Cedrone, such as "ties to the community" like a job or family.

"Our criminal justice system is filled with cases where blacks are treated
more severely than whites for similar crimes," Fox said. "I don't question
[Singleton's] concern for racism in the criminal justice system, but to
come down hard on Coakley because here are two cases that are not treated
equivalently does not mean race was the determining factor."