JUDGE SAYS JUSTICE WAS TOO SPEEDY

Two Hours After His Drug Arrest, A Bordentown Man Got A Year's Sentence. A
Retrial Has Been Ordered.

It was a case of justice rushed, a Burlington County judge decided
yesterday, freeing a Bordentown Township dishwasher who had been arrested,
charged, convicted and sentenced in municipal court to a one-year term for
drug offenses - all in about two hours.

Leonard Juniors Jr. served three weeks in the county jail and five weeks in
the Mid-State Correctional Facility at Fort Dix before Superior Court Judge
Victor Friedman vacated his sentence yesterday during an appeal hearing.

Friedman said Bonnie L. Goldman, the county's top municipal judge, had sent
Juniors to state prison on minor drug charges without determining the facts
of the case.

Juniors, 30, was arrested early July 14 as he walked home from his
all-night dishwashing job. He was searched, charged with possession of less
than 50 grams of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, and taken before Goldman.

According to court records, the judge, who also oversees Burlington
County's municipal courts, quickly meted out a one-year state prison term,
saying Juniors was a repeat offender who was not entitled to "any more
benefits of the doubt," according to court records.

Friedman said yesterday that a judge must first "obtain a factual basis"
for the charges before accepting a guilty plea and sentencing a defendant.
He said that was not done.

Friedman also said he believed the speed with which Juniors had been
incarcerated was improper.

"Two hours after the incident he was tried, not five days later, as
required, which could even be a possible violation of the court rules,"
Friedman said. He sent the case back to municipal court to be tried by a
different judge and released Juniors on signature bail.

Goldman was on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

Sitting outside the courtroom, still dressed in tan prison garb but without
handcuffs, Juniors said he had told Goldman that he did not need an
attorney before he pleaded guilty to possession of a marijuana cigarette
and two glass tubes used to inhale crack cocaine.

"I was expecting probation because of the small amount and was shocked at
the sentence," he said.

Juniors' attorney, James Logan Jr. of Mount Holly, said he, too, "was in a
state of shock" at how the case was handled. He also plans to question the
grounds for the police search when the case is retried.

"They had no right to search him on the street. Cops prey on certain
people, and he was one of them because they knew him and he had a record,"
Logan said. "They wanted him to help out with a case and were mad at him
for not producing for them."

Bordentown police officials did not return calls for comment.

Goldman, according to court transcripts, cited Juniors' convictions,
including shoplifting, robbery, drugs and sexual assault, as the reason for
giving him jail time. "You have dug yourself a very deep hole," she said,
adding that she was giving him a prison term as "an incentive for you to
get yourself into a [drug rehabilitation] program."

Juniors acknowledged that he had a lengthy record and served four years in
state prison, but since his release in 1994 he had no other offenses until
his arrest this summer.