DRUG SENTENCES

Consequences Are Often Overlooked

As a fellow member of the criminal justice system with 25 years
experience, I could not help notice the errors in Judge Jim Murphy's
opinion piece of Feb. 20 ("Drug sentencing structure is unfair, costs
us too much"). Judge Murphy is a good and decent person who knows a
lot about the law, but there is one law he is ignoring: the law of
unintended consequences.

The two examples Judge Murphy uses not only compare race, they also
compare different crimes. He spoke about one law being a "strike"
crime, but doesn't mention the strike crime law was an unintended
consequence brought about by citizen initiative due to the
unwillingness of judges to impose sufficient punishment on certain
crimes. The uniform sentencing act, which provides stiff sentences for
certain crimes, was an unintended consequence from legislators who
also were frustrated with some judges.

I remember the words I heard a judge tell a prosecutor who was asking
for a long sentence for a repeat drug offender who was the single
parent of two. The judge said, "There is something about this man that
invokes sympathy from this court." A few weeks later, this man killed
two people in a drug dispute. He's now in prison for life. I remember
another judge who took sympathy on a single mother of two. A few weeks
later, she was dead from a drug overdose.

I'm certain these judges thought they were doing the right thing. They
probably aren't even aware of the unintended consequences of their
actions. The mistake they made was forgetting these are real people,
with real problems, that require real action. They don't exist in the
antiseptic world of statistics and courtroom arguments. Those of us in
the criminal justice system do not have the luxury of doing what makes
us "feel good," but we do have the duty and responsibility of doing
what is best for the people we serve.

WILLIAM C. FLANDERS

Marysville