COURT CALLED HARSH ON DRUGS

A lawyer for the governor's nephew is raising a rare legal challenge that
could test whether a court known for its tough stance on illegal drugs
effectively undermines defendants' rights.

In papers filed at the state appellate court, Hartford lawyer William T.
Gerace claims that a Rockville Superior Court judge abused his discretion
last month when he denied 19-year-old Peter Rowland's bid for a special
form of probation that would allow him to avoid prosecution on drug charges.

Gerace, in the rare legal spectacle of challenging a judge in his own
courtroom, argued last month to Judge Terence A. Sullivan that his court's
view of drug crimes is so out of step as to create an "irrational
disparity" with the state's other Superior Courts. Sullivan rejected the
argument - and denied Rowland's bid for accelerated rehabilitation.

Rowland and his former roommate were arrested in September on charges that
they sold marijuana out of their dorm room to a confidential informant and
to an undercover police officer at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.
Police affidavits say investigators later searched the room and found 41
bags of marijuana, worth about $750.

The charges against Rowland are pending.

"The deck is stacked in Rockville," Gerace said in a recent interview,
claiming that Sullivan and the Rockville prosecutor who handles drug
matters, Matthew C. Gedansky, share an unusually severe stance on drug crimes.

The state is seeking dismissal of the appeal on procedural grounds, arguing
that the appellate court has jurisdiction only over the lower court's final
judgments.

In court last month, Gerace said he could imagine no better candidate for
accelerated rehabilitation than his client. Rowland, he said, was an honor
society student and a private in the Connecticut National Guard, a young
man who had made sandwiches for a soup kitchen and was, at one point, an
altar boy.

Gerace told Sullivan that Rockville is well-known as an unusually tough
court on drug cases, one that takes a "harsher and more serious view of
this than other courts."

"I would ask the court to not make Rockville an aberration across the
state," Gerace said.

Sullivan sided with Gedansky as he denied the request, finding that the
alleged crime was serious enough to exclude the defendant from the
accelerated rehabilitation program. Sullivan, who declined comment Tuesday,
also said he cannot make decisions for other judges but tries to be
consistent in his own rulings.

The case is now awaiting trial. Gerace said the prosecutor's offers for a
plea bargain have carried requirements that Rowland serve prison time.
Rowland's former roommate, Andrew Joonyup Hyun, pleaded guilty in February
to selling marijuana and was sentenced to one year in prison. He will be
deported upon his release.

Gedansky, who declined to comment on the appeal, has said that his tough
approach on drugs sends a resounding message of such deterrence that
dealers are reluctant to meet in Rockville because they know they'll do
time if they get caught. He is widely credited with helping to curb the
drug and gang problem that gripped the Vernon community six years ago.

Gerace on Tuesday characterized Joonyup's sentence, the result of a plea
agreement, as astoundingly severe. "You wouldn't expect to see that most
places in America," he said. "And certainly not in Connecticut."

Several other defense attorneys said they, too, had found Rockville to be
harder on drug cases than other courts.

"Rockville, because of their caseload, has the luxury of devoting more time
to cases that in other jurisdictions have to be moved more quickly," said
defense lawyer Arthur Meisler.

Still, Meisler said inflexible sentencing guidelines would create an even
greater injustice than the discrepancies that arise when judges are allowed
to weigh the individual merits of each case.

"The remedy could itself be worse than the malady," said Meisler, a former
Rockville prosecutor.

Susan Marks, the supervisory assistant state's attorney defending the state
against Rowland's appeal, declined to comment on Gerace's claim at least
until the court rules on her motion to dismiss the appeal. "That's very
much an argument for a different day," she said.