PRISON TIME IN DRUG CASE CALLED CRUEL

Dubbed an "armed career criminal," a Greene County man charged with
growing marijuana in Shenandoah National Park has been sentenced to
15 years in prison for possessing drugs and a firearm.

Lawyers for Edison P. Crawford are appealing the sentence, arguing in
a motion filed Monday that the penalty is a violation of their
client's Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

The Bacon Hollow resident remains free on bond pending the outcome of
his appeal.

After a yearlong investigation, federal authorities charged Crawford
in November 2002 with harvesting $66,400 worth of marijuana in
Shenandoah National Park. He pleaded guilty to possessing marijuana
and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon in a June 2003 plea
bargain with federal prosecutors.

Other charges, including manufacturing a controlled substance and
possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute, were dropped
as a result of the agreement. Prosecutors also agreed to recommend a
sentence on the low-end of sentencing guidelines, believed to be
between 18 and 24 months.

Crawford's criminal history, however, qualifies him for a 15-year
mandatory minimum sentence under the federal Armed Career Criminal
Act. That was the sentence that Judge Norman K. Moon handed down
Friday in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville.

In the 1970s, Crawford was convicted of three counts of breaking and
entering, according to a motion filed by Crawford's lawyer, John K.
Zwerling. In the past 35 years, according to the motion, Crawford was
convicted of only one misdemeanor: shooting a bear on federal land.

"Mr. Crawford's convictions are so old that Congress has declined to
have them count in his criminal history scoring, and they are
non-qualifying convictions for considerations as a Career Criminal,
yet somehow they qualify to make him an Armed Career Criminal,"
Zwerling argues in the motion. "The sentence in this case is facially
unjust and is so out of proportion as to hold the federal sentencing
scheme up to ridicule."

Zwerling is asking the court to overturn the 15-year sentence and
impose a prison term in the 18-24 month range. The Alexandria lawyer
points to a case in which a federal judge in Utah found a 55-year
mandatory minimum sentence to be "unjust, irrational and cruel" but
imposed it anyway, based on Supreme Court rulings upholding such sentences.

On appeal, the Utah case, United States v. Angelos, spurred 100
federal judges and U.S. attorneys to write briefs arguing that the
sentence was unconstitutional, Zwerling writes.

Further, the criminal conduct triggering the mandatory minimum
sentence was "extraordinarily minimal," Zwerling writes. When police
searched Crawford's home, they found two rifles not locked away and
numerous other hunting firearms in a locked gun case.