JUSTICE SYSTEMS VASTLY DIFFERENT

It's a quick trip across Juan de Fuca Strait, and an even faster one
through the U.S. justice system for those who get caught.

Marijuana smugglers familiar with the slow pace of justice in Canada must
get whiplash going through the U.S. courts.

One minute they're in a boat loaded with hockey bags full of B.C. bud; the
next they're doing three years in a U.S. federal penitentiary.

Turnaround time from arrest to sentence?

Five months.

Michael Dewayne Morcom learned that the hard way.

On Sept. 25, 2003, the 41-year-old Duncan resident was picked up in a black
Zodiac heading from Mill Bay to Roche Harbour, Wash. The boat was loaded
with several large hockey and nylon sport bags containing 314 vacuum-sealed
plastic bags of marijuana. The bud weighed in at about 125 kilograms with a
wholesale value of at least $850,000 US.

Less than five months later, on Feb. 13, John McKay, the U.S. district
attorney for the Western District of Washington, announced that Morcom had
been sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for possession of marijuana
with intent to distribute. Morcom, who declined a request for an interview,
is serving his time at a federal penitentiary in Lompoc, Calif.

McKay said Morcom, who was paid $2,000 to smuggle the drugs across the
border, will serve the full 37 months, since the federal system has
abolished parole. Morcom can request a transfer to Canada, although that is
unlikely to happen for at least a year, if it happens at all.

Canadian and U.S. justice officials said the speed at which Morcom's case
proceeded is typical. While Canadian courts bend to the breaking point
under a backlog of pending trials, U.S. law requires their system to move
at a rapid rate in order to protect the accused's constitutional right to a
speedy trial.

Assistant U.S. district attorney Janet Freeman said the law insists that
criminal trials must take place within 70 days of indictment.

"So things really get moving," she said. "When you arrest someone, it
starts what we call a 'speedy trial clock.' "

The Canadian duo of Anthony Ray Johnson and Jeff Craig Bishop were arrested
Jan. 19 after a Zodiac loaded with marijuana was found on the beach west of
Port Angeles. Four months later, Johnson was convicted in Tacoma, and
Bishop pleaded guilty four days later.

Bob Prior, director of the federal prosecution service in B.C., said
similar cases in Canada take substantially longer because so many more
people plead not guilty and go to trial.

"It would almost never happen up here that quickly," said Prior. He said
the speedy-trial act plays a key role, but the U.S. system also handles far
fewer trials because so many more people plead guilty.

"There are very strong incentives in the U.S. to cooperate with the
police," Prior said.

"If they plead and cooperate, they fall outside the guidelines for
sentencing. So the person who might have got a minimum 10 years in jail, by
cooperating with the authorities, is no longer facing that minimum."

Defence attorneys, argue, however, that such incentives create their own
problems.

"When you have people with that kind of incentive, their incentive isn't
necessarily to tell the truth, but rather to tell something that helps them
get what they want," said Seattle criminal defence attorney Stephan Illa,
who represented Johnson at trial.

"In fact, that's what I've seen repeatedly -- that the people who are given
this kind of incentive will go out and collect information that is
extraordinarily helpful to the government but may not be true."

Illa said Canadians awaiting trial at the federal detention centre in south
Seattle have been approached by other Canadians trying to get information
or work a deal.

"Then, suddenly, those people are identified as informants, who say: 'Well,
this guy told me x, y and z about his crime.' And, in fact, it may not be
the case at all."

The suspects, however, desperately want to avoid the federal sentencing
guidelines that call for much more stringent penalties than those handed
out in Canada for similar offences.

A smuggler caught with more than 100 kilograms of marijuana in the U.S.,
for instance, faces a minimum sentence of five years. "That's the starting
point," Freeman says. "Five years on up to 40 years."

A person caught with 1,000 kilograms or more of marijuana faces a mandatory
minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.

"Many of the people I deal with, they just can't believe how serious and
severe the sentences are," Illa said.

By comparison, Prior said the sentences would be much lower in Canada. A
person caught with 100 kilos of marijuana in B.C. might face three years in
prison, but would likely get parole after serving only a part of that.

"The really significant difference isn't so much the likely sentence that
you'd get up here," Prior said. "The difference is that in the U.S. it's a
certain penalty. You will get 10 years without parole if you have 1,000
kilos of marijuana. No discussion.

"Up here, you can enter into a discussion, [there are] all kinds of
mitigating factors, and what the role of the person was becomes quite
important up here. Whereas down there, they don't really seem to care as much."

There is also no parole in the U.S. under federal sentencing guidelines, so
that what you get is what you serve. Canadians imprisoned in the U.S. can
apply for a transfer to Canada, but there is no guarantee that they will
get the transfer, Prior says.