THE SAWIN ACQUITTAL

Kyle W. Sawin's acquittal on drug-dealing charges yesterday in
Berkshire Superior Court suggests that the District Attorney's office
will be hard-pressed to get any convictions of those collected in the
drug sting last year in Great Barrington. The office may well have
brought, in the words of District Attorney David Capeless, a
"compelling and very credible case," but jurors are feeling human
beings, who may never be sold on a conviction knowing what is in store
for the defendant if found guilty.

Mr. Sawin was found not guilty of distributing marijuana and
committing a drug violation within a 1,000-foot school zone two months
after his first case ended in a mistrial when the jury deadlocked.
Jurors may have bought the defense's argument that the defendant was
entrapped by a member of the county's Drug Task Force and/or it was
uncomfortable with the mandatory two-year jail sentence for
convictions of a school-zone offense.

Three men, who were also part of the original 17 netted on drug
charges in the Taconic parking lot, testified against Mr. Sawin in
the hope that their own two-year mandatory minimum charges would be
dropped, which raised the sentencing law to the attention of jurors.
The Draconian nature of the school-zone law simply cannot be ignored.

It makes no distinction between first and habitual offenders or the
amount of drugs sold. It ties the hands of judges, who should be
allowed to consider the differences in drug cases brought before them.
It is clearly designed to protect school children, and while the
Taconic lot is within 1,000-feet of two schools, the undercover
operation took place in summer.

It's obvious unfairness will loom over any of the trials brought
because of the Great Barrington sting. First-time drug dealers should
be penalized through some combination of probation, counseling and
community service that will set them straight without ruining the
lives of the young people charged.

However, the district attorney's all-or-nothing strategy, built as it
is upon a bad law, means they will escape punishment and the
counseling they clearly need. In essence, the Great Barrington sting
and prosecution has accomplished nothing, other than perhaps scaring
marijuana dealers out of downtown Great Barrington. The Berkshires do
have major drug problems, but they involve drugs like heroin or crack,
which can kill users and whose dealers and users often resort to violence.

Juror Jonathan Nix of Becket expressed outrage that so many government
resources were put into "such a trivial case with such meager
returns." We hope the result of yesterday's trial, and the likelihood
of similar decisions if more of the Great Barrington sting cases go to
trial, will prompt Mr. Capeless to focus more of his department's
efforts on the serious drug problems that afflict the Berkshires.