TOP COURT TO REVIEW RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to review the case of a
Pennsylvania woman, a recovered drug addict serving a 10-year prison term
for refusing to tell a judge how much cocaine she might have distributed.

"I am thankful to be alive today, (for) getting away from drugs," Amanda
Mitchell told the judge at her 1996 sentencing. Mitchell added that she was
so addicted to drugs that she could not have been involved in a large-scale
operation to sell them.

As a result of her refusal to say more, U.S. District Judge Edward Cahn
relied on conflicting testimony about Mitchell's activities from members of
an Allentown drug ring and gave her the mandatory minimum sentence.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia last year upheld the sentence.

At issue in the case is a defendant's right to remain silent at sentencing
without being penalized.

Mitchell's lawyer, Steven Morley of Philadelphia, on Monday explained the
issue raised by her appeal: "The significant thing here is that she invoked
her 5th Amendment privilege for fear that her own testimony would make her
look more culpable than she was and drive her sentence higher and higher."

He stressed that Mitchell, a former factory worker in her mid-40s, "got
involved with people in the conspiracy primarily as a user" and has no
"reliable measure" of the drugs she might have handled in the few drug
transactions she was involved in.

According to Morley, Mitchell had no prior criminal record when she started
using cocaine in the early 1990s. At one point, he said, she had to sell
her furniture to maintain her habit.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers had urged the court to
hear Mitchell's appeal and to rule that a defendant can remain silent
without penalty at sentencing.

"A criminal defendant who has pleaded guilty retains the right to assert
the 5th Amendment privilege against being compelled to be a witness against
herself at sentencing," the association told the court.

Furthermore, the association said, the increased sentence "was expressly
predicated on drawing an adverse inference" from Mitchell's silence.

The friend of the court brief cited Justice Department statistics showing
that 90 percent of federal criminal defendants whose cases are not
dismissed plead guilty as Mitchell did.

"In the vast majority of federal cases, sentencing is the most important
issue," the brief said. "Conduct for which the defendant has not been
convicted can add years to her punishment in the most routine cases."

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)