CUT DOWN SABRE IN ITS TRACKS

The governor's anti-drug legislation relies heavily on a failed
strategy: mandatory minimum sentences that relieve judges of the power
to make judgments.

Virginia lawmakers are poised to pass an anti-drug legislative package
that is politically potent, but laced with bad policy.

They owe it to the public to take a tough look at the likely,
unintended consequences and backpedal.

The thrust of much of SABRE, Gov.
(http://www.state.va.us/home/governmt.html)Jim
Gilmore's Substance Abuse Reduction Effort, is to lock up drug
"kingpins" and throw away the key. Who can oppose that? Few
politicians, to be sure.

SABRE supposedly would achieve this commendable result by setting
mandatory minimum sentences for trafficking in illegal drugs based on
the weight of the drugs. A transaction involving a set amount of
certain drugs would trigger a predetermined -- and, needless to say,
harsh -- sentence, and no amount of tricky lawyering could get around
it.

Big-time dealers would be swept up, and the small fry would slip
through the mandatory-minimum sentencing net.

That's the theory. It's so simple and politically appealing that
Congress and many state legislatures have adopted it. Virginia, in
fact, already has a drug kingpin law that carries a mandatory 20-year
minimum sentence. The state should not expand it.

For the reality is that long, mandatory sentences have not slowed drug
trafficking, but they have needlessly destroyed lives -- many the very
lives society set out to protect in the first place in declaring a
"war on drugs."

A factor such as the weight of an illegal substance is not a reliable
indicator of a person's place in the drug trade. Anecdotal evidence
abounds of addicts, of wives and girlfriends, of low-level "mules" who
play negligible roles in drug organizations but receive heavy
penalties. The "big fish" trade them to prosecutors in exchange for
lesser charges.

Judges bound by mandatory minimums are stripped of their ability to
weigh all factors in determining a fair sentence. Such policies risk
gross injustices, and that is a risk Virginia does not need to take.

The state has tough drug penalties, and a system for developing
reasonable sentencing guidelines. Just last year, the Virginia
Sentencing Commission recommended, and the (http://legis.state.va.us/)General
Assembly passed, stiffer penalties for repeat drug offenders.

Judges, of course, are free to depart from the guidelines. They can
impose lighter or heavier sentences, after taking into account
mitigating or aggravating circumstances. Tellingly, a commission
spokesman said it never has recommended setting mandatory minimum sentences.

SABRE's mandatory minimums smack more of political than of penal
concerns. Gilmore trotted the package out just before last fall's
legislative elections. Contrast this hastily offered, ill-conceived
initiative with the carefully crafted no-parole policy of the
preceding Allen administration.

A real need existed for that reform. It was implemented in a way that
avoided the "three-strikes-you're-out" pitfalls that played so well
politically in other states -- and yielded appalling results.

SABRE threatens to dig Virginia a deep pit of its own.