DRUG LAW REFORMS: GOOD CHANGES TO SENTENCES, NOW JUDGES MUST BE DISCERNING

Judges are in the best position to distinguish between a high-level drug
don and an addicted user who got caught the one time he sold half his load
to a desperate buddy.

Until now, overly harsh state drug laws haven't allowed those who sit on
the bench any discretion to make that call. Revisions passed last month and
signed by John Engler, in one of his last acts as governor, will go a long
way toward righting the problem -- provided judges are discerning and
citizens watchful.

At issue are mandatory sentences for drug offenders enacted in the late
1970s. The tough laws were a reaction to an alarming nationwide crack
cocaine epidemic.

They required judges to sentence criminals according to the amount of drugs
involved in their offenses.

No other criteria could be considered. Criminal history, whether violence
was involved, the seriousness of the offense could not be factored into the
sentence.

Such circumstances are routinely taken into account in other felony
convictions.

The laws were a well-intentioned -- but wrong-headed -- response to a
serious societal scourge.

Judges weren't permitted to distinguish in sentencing between small-time
street hustlers and the kingpins who controlled them. The worst drug
offenders used their vast information to sell out lower-level cronies in
exchange for lighter sentences. Meanwhile, people who made stupid choices
and who had no prior convictions were sentenced needlessly to decades
behind bars. The laws sometimes punished the wrong people.

A broad coalition of lawmakers, prosecutors and prisoner advocates came to
recognize the failure of these laws. The state's prosecuting attorneys,
former state Sen. Paul Rosenbaum of Battle Creek who pushed the harshest
bills in 1978, and former Gov. William Milliken who signed the legislation,
all agreed the inflexible rules had to go. They teamed with the group
Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a Washington-based reform
organization. Helping to clear the way was outgoing Sen. William Van
Regenmorter, R-Georgetown Township. Mr. Van Regenmorter, who will serve in
the House again beginning this year, was head of the Senate Judiciary
Committee and is a nationally renowned victims advocate, not a
soft-on-crime politician by any stretch.

The agreement of these varied interests testifies strongly to the need for
reform.

Beginning March 1, mandatory minimums will be replaced with sentencing
guidelines. Judges will have more latitude to consider individual cases.

The one disappointment in these otherwise worthy changes was their abysmal
timing.

Lawmakers took action in the just-completed lame-duck session.

They should have moved before the election, when accountability to voters
would have been assured.

Judges should not interpret their new discretion as license to dole out
easy sentences.

They must continue to levy tough prison terms on repeat and violent
offenders, and especially the big-time distributors in the drug trade.

However, they should use their leeway to rehabilitate, rather than
warehouse, first-time and non-violent criminals. Voters can exercise their
own judgments about these decisions at the ballot box. With proper
execution, the new laws should make drug sentences in Michigan more
sensible and more just.