LAMPERT'S CONVICTION THROWN OUT DUE TO DEATH

I write in response to Susan Lampert Smith's column last Sunday on the
prosecution of Susan Lampert.

I am not writing to defend our decision to prosecute Lampert (no
relation to the columnist) for her role in Terrance Larson's marijuana
operation.

In criminal cases, friends and others who are sympathetic to the
defendant often object to decisions made in a case. Your columnist is
entitled to her opinion.

Instead, I am writing to correct the record and mischaracterizations.

One premise of the columnist's opinion -- and the headline -- is that
Lampert died as a result of her incarceration. The reported facts in
the column, however, simply do not support that conclusion.

On June 27, 2005, law enforcement officers executed a search warrant
at the Terrance Larson property near Lodi. The officers found
processed marijuana and well over 100 plants of growing marijuana with
the total weight in excess of 35 kilograms of marijuana. Given the
amount, federal law prescribes a mandatory minimum five-year sentence.

In only very limited circumstances is a federal sentencing judge
allowed to depart below that mandatory minimum. In this case,
following Lampert's guilty plea, Judge John Shabaz granted a reduction
below this mandatory sentence based on his conclusions that:

Lampert had no prior criminal history.

She did not use any violence or possess a gun in connection with the
offense.

She was not an organizer or supervisor of others in the
offense.

She had truthfully provided all information and evidence she
had.

Based on these findings by the judge, the federal sentencing
guidelines suggested a range of 24 to 30 months. Shabaz then chose a
sentence at the lower end of that range (26 months), almost three
years below the otherwise mandatory minimum five-year sentence.

Finally, the column's conclusion states that the 7th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals "sided with Lampert" and ordered her conviction
vacated on March 14.

This leaves the mistaken impression that the Court of Appeals
overturned her conviction based on a finding that Lampert had been
improperly convicted and improperly sentenced. Nothing could be
further from the truth.

In fact, Lampert's defense attorney quite properly moved to dismiss
her appeal following Lampert's death. As is standard practice in the
7th Circuit in such a situation, the court dismisses the appeal,
vacates the conviction and dismisses the indictment.

When an appeal has been taken and death has deprived a person of her
right to a decision, the interests of justice require that the person
not stand convicted because the appeal was not resolved.

In other words, the appellate decision had nothing to do with the
merit, or lack of merit, of Lampert's appeal.