HASTA LA VISTA, BABY

WASHINGTON -- Hey! Ps-s-s-s-st. Over here, pal.

Are you, by any chance, a major drug dealer who has gotten nailed with the
goods?

Are you facing life imprisonment in a federal prison without parole because
of get-tough anti-drug legislation? Are you singing the blues at the
prospect of life caged up with a wife named Bruno?

Relax, pal. You can get out of jail in five years or less. You might even be
able to walk out of the courtroom scot-free.

All you have to do is snitch. Rat. Be a stoolie.

Your federal government pays millions of dollars a year to stoolies and
thanks to a loophole in Congress' get-tough crime legislation you may be on
your way back to the streets. Just find some poor sap to take your place.

A little history, first. When the death of Boston Celtics-pick Len Bias set
off a national frenzy in 1986 over crack cocaine, Congress passed tough
mandatory-sentencing laws aimed at drug traffickers. First-time offenders
who previously had been viewed as minor offenders could now get 10 years to
life in prison without parole, even if they played only a minor role in the
drug trafficking or transaction.

Then in 1988 Congress passed an amendment that called for the lowest person
in a drug "conspiracy" to be punished with the maximum sentence designed for
a kingpin.

Judges kicked up a fuss. Mandatory sentencing took away their discretion.
They could no longer give a break to a young, first-time offender who showed
promise of going straight. As early as 1991 the Congressional Sentencing
Commission criticized mandatory minimums. Most of the judges surveyed called
mandatory minimums "manifestly unjust."

But what do judges know? Congress was on the warpath.

But, cheer up, Bubbah. The new sentencing laws left a way out for defendants
who wanted to avoid receiving the mandatory minimum sentence. All you gotta
do is rat on someone.

And get this: You won't even need evidence. No piles of cocaine or hashish
needed on the evidence table. As long as the prosecutors believe you sound
convincing, your testimony alone can get someone indicted and even
convicted, even if it is not true.

Of course, if you really are a big-time drug dealer I am not telling you
news. The loopholes of the law are well-known by those who make a living at
this sort of thing. For the rest of us, there are programs like "Snitch," a
documentary on PBS' "Frontline," which was broadcast Jan. 12. Produced by
Ofra Bikel, it showed some of the faces behind the statistics. Additional
background information can be found at www.pbs.org, the PBS website.

"Snitch" showed self-described lying informants and their victims, male,
female, young and old, white and black. It showed drug traffickers who
admitted to receiving money, a lighter sentence or complete freedom, simply
for lying about someone else. It showed the families who have been ruined,
financially and otherwise, by snitches and the get-tough politicians who
piously justify the laws they passed.

"The reason we have mandatory minimums is because of these judges we have in
our society who are soft on crime," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) explains.
Something must be done to get at the drug traffickers who are killing our
kids, he said.

Fair enough, but what about the big fish that have been let go just because
they turned "snitch" on the little fish, in effect, turning the law's intent
on its head?

Or, as one federal prosecutor explains, "You try to go up the ladder . . .,
starting with the little fish and going up the ladder to the big fish, but
sometimes you've got the big fish and you need to come down the ladder."

Since "Snitch" is told mostly from the defendants' point of view, we can
quibble about just how innocent or redeemable some of these "victims" really
were. But, even Sen. Hatch and others who wanted most passionately to get
tough on the drug crimes should be appalled at how obscenely Congress' good
intentions have been twisted and abused.

Little fish are getting jailed while big fish walk free. A 1995 Sentencing
Commission report found that only 11.2 percent of drug-trafficking
defendants are big-timers, while 52 percent were low-level street dealers
and couriers.

In one such case, a college football player was paid to drive several
fellows, all of whom had criminal records, to a drug transaction. His
passengers laid the drug transaction on the college boy, who had no criminal
record. He received three life sentences with no chance of parole. His
passengers who turned snitch received reduced sentences and, in one case,
freedom.

One of the jurors, who was not in court for the sentencing, appears to be
visibly shocked in the documentary to learn from producer Bikel that the boy
had been given such a stiff sentence. "I had no idea," he says, shaking his
head. "I wish I didn't know now that he had gotten life."

No, a lot of us wish we didn't know a lot of things. We'd sleep better at
night.

The war on drugs, like every war, has inflicted tragic collateral damage on
many lives. It is too late to fix all of the lives. It is not too late to
fix the law.