IS JUSTICE SERVED?

Wrong Place, Wrong Time: 10 Years In Prison For Someone Else's Pot.

Some stories so dramatically illustrate the shortcomings of our criminal
justice system that they take your breath away. The prosecution of Miguel
Mendoza Palominos is such a story.

Palominos, a 21-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico, was convicted
recently in federal court of manufacturing 1,000 marijuana plants. His
guilt is not in question.

According to his attorney, Palominos, who is illiterate, grew up in extreme
poverty in Mexico. He never attended school and spent his childhood begging
for food on the streets.

Lured to the United States with promises of a job in agriculture, he was
taken to remote Tehama County, where he was put to work watering marijuana
plants. He was there only two months when he was caught in a raid. The
lowliest cog in a huge marijuana growing operation, he was the only one
apprehended.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Judge William Shubb had minimal
discretion. Because of the huge number of plants involved and the fact that
deputies found a semiautomatic pistol in Palominos' backpack, Shubb was
required to sentence him to 10 years in prison for conduct that he noted,
"the majority of the people in California believe should be legalized."
Palominos' youth, his lack of sophistication, the fact that he had never
even gotten paid or that he was looking for a way to feed his mother and
sisters back in Mexico didn't matter. Nor did it matter that the principals
in the crime, the people who exploited Palominos, were never caught, that
they are free to plant new gardens.

Certainly what Palominos did was wrong and deserving of punishment. Illegal
pot farms have turned California wilderness areas into war zones. The
criminals guarding hidden marijuana groves endanger the public. Palominos
was armed.

Still, it's hard to see how locking a poor, desperate youth from Mexico
away for 10 years while the principals in the operation go free helps solve
the problem or advances justice. It's hard to understand how it will deter
the next desperate illegal immigrant from being lured north to water pot
plants.