JUDGE UPHOLDS $1 FINE IN COCAINE CASE

PORTSMOUTH, Va. -- The judge admitted he was shocked at the jury's
recommended sentence but there was little he could do, so he imposed a $1
fine on a man convicted of possessing cocaine.

The jury convicted Steven Byrd, 28, in November for leading police on a
high-speed chase and having a gun in his car, along with a razor blade
dusted with cocaine residue. The jury recommended the mandatory five-year
term for a gun charge, a year for eluding police and a dollar for drug
possession.

Circuit Judge James A. Cales Jr. upheld the recommendation at Byrd's
sentencing Thursday. Judges are barred from imposing anything stiffer than
a jury recommends.

"I was shocked at the jury verdict, quite frankly," Cales said in court. "I
think everybody in the courtroom was."

Jurors said in interviews they had no particular message to send and the
sentence was a compromise reached after at least four votes.

"It was all what is the best and most fair," jury foreman Michael B. Tanner
told The Virginian-Pilot. "We're not making a statement on anything. We
were deciding on the incident as a whole."

At least one juror, L. Wilson Brown III, was dissatisfied.

"We made a huge compromise to get out of there," Brown said. "He got off a
lot easier than he should have."

Byrd didn't think so.

"I'd like to appeal," he told Cales on Thursday. "A lot of things went
wrong. A lot of things were overlooked."

The judge responded, "They couldn't have given you much less."