JUDGE FINDS IT TOUGH TO JAIL A DRUG DEALER

Key Player In A Brazen Dial-A-Dope Operation Gets Only 3 1/2 Years In Jail

Politicians can pass laws lengthening maximum sentences for traffickers in
hard drugs but they will have little effect, as some judges already feel
caught between public outcry and precedent bowing towards rehabilitation
rather than punishment.

North Vancouver Provincial Court Judge William Diebolt says in a lengthy,
thoughtful ruling it's tough to imprison even sophisticated, hard-core drug
dealers for longer than a handful of years.

And he pointedly included in his review of cases a decision by former B.C.
Court of Appeal Judge Wally Oppal, now B.C. Liberal attorney-general, that
endorses the velvet glove approach.

The case that triggered Diebolt's observations was the sentencing of a key
player in a dial-a-dope operation at a time politicians and the public are
fulminating about the damage methamphetamines and cocaine are causing to
society.

He gave the 28-year-old man only 3 1/2 years in jail even though his gang
was so brazen it gave away business cards at raves, parties and clubs
saying call us, we deliver.

The cops did, and they did -- dropping off large, ounce-sized buys of cocaine.

Drugs like ecstasy, methamphetamine and crack cocaine were cooked up in two
rented downtown Vancouver apartments. Police said the Melville Street suite
was so badly damaged by the drug-manufacturing it was deemed unfit for
habitation and had to be stripped by the landlord.

Sixteen people -- 14 men and two women -- aged 18 to 39 were arrested and
73 charges laid after a year-long sting investigation by North Vancouver
RCMP officers.

They seized from four residences $500,000 worth of cocaine, a pill press,
cash, steroids, a Taser-style weapon, replica guns and nine vehicles,
including a black Hummer adorned with a logo that read: ICE. In-Car
Entertainment.

It's hard to think of a worse case.

But Diebolt said he seriously considered a conditional sentence for Robert
Daniel Couture, who pleaded guilty to trafficking cocaine between July 2004
and October 2004, and possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.

Sad to say, Diebolt could have justified it even though Couture sold an
ounce to an undercover cop for $4,100 during one buy, four ounces for
$3,800 in a second buy, nine ounces for $8,100 on another occasion and four
ounces for $4,100 on a final buy. He even discussed supplying kilos for
$29,000 each but never got a chance. Couture was arrested holding three
ounces of cocaine and 100 ecstasy pills packaged, ready for sale.

He maintained an office at 850 Burrard St., where police found one kilo of
cocaine powder, half a kilo of cocaine rock, 3,700 ecstasy pills, some
methamphetamine pills, and two grams of methamphetamine powder. The total
street-level value was around $230,000.

At his residence, the Mounties seized: two ounces of cocaine, 31 ecstasy
pills, sales records, scales, and packaging paraphernalia. They also
confiscated $61,241.06 in cash.

This was a big-time drug distribution operation involving a corporate shell
and Couture was a high-level dealer.

But Diebolt reviewed B.C. cases and found four years was probably the most
he could mete out based on:

- - A 1991 B.C. Court of Appeal decision that four years imprisonment was an
appropriate sentence in a case involving importation and possession of
multiple kilos of cocaine;

- - A 1993 B.C. Court of Appeal decision upholding a four-year sentence for a
kilo of cocaine;

- - A 1994 B.C. Court of Appeal decision endorsing the appropriateness of a
four-year sentence when dealing with elaborate trafficking organizations;

- - A 1999 B.C. Supreme Court sentence of three years even though the judge
said: "The distribution of cocaine into our community contributes to the
heartbreaking amounts of human suffering. Cocaine is well known to cause
death, contribute to criminal violence, to crime in general, and to ruin
lives. It has taken fathers and mothers from their children, children from
their parents, ruined many marriages and many careers. Those who deal in
cocaine know all this, yet they choose to continue in the interests of
making a profit; "

- - A 1999 case before the same court in which a 23-year-old accused with no
criminal record got 31/2 years for trafficking in two kilos of cocaine;

- - A 2000 case in which a 15-month sentence was imposed and upheld on by the
B.C. Court of Appeal for seven trafficking in cocaine offences;

- - A 2001 B.C. Court of Appeal decision involving a similar dial-a-dope
operation that led to a prison term of 18 months.

Diebolt quoted Oppal from an October 2002 appeal endorsing this approach
under the 1996 conditional sentencing provisions added to the Criminal Code.

"Those amendments," Oppal wrote, "resulted in generally less severe
sentences, particularly in regard to first offenders. As well, the [trial]
judge stated that ... conditional sentences, which must be under two years,
are now not uncommon for first offences in regard to significant quantities
of hard drugs where the court is of the view that it is unlikely the
offender will reoffend."

Diebolt acidly noted Oppal's thinking "seems to be at odds" with his
brother judge on the B.C. Court of Appeal, Richard Low, who as a trial
judge handed a similar drug trafficker eight years, noting that sentencing
leniency provisions should not apply in the worse cases. Diebolt clearly
liked that approach.

Still, he was bound by the Supreme Court of Canada's view that deterrence
and denunciation can be accomplished without incarceration; that a
conditional sentence should be the first alternative to be considered, and
that it should be rejected only where it is clear that incarceration is
necessary.

In his view: "The court is in a bit of a quandary," in terms of direction
on hard-drug cases and even though he is a hard-nosed guy, Diebolt came
down in the so-called "appropriate" range for Couture.

"One hopes that this may cause him to choose a new path and a more
appropriate lifestyle," he told the new father and convict.