DIFFERENT BUT NOT NECESSARILY BETTER

Stewart Changes Sentencing For Dennis Young

Etowah County Circuit Judge Donald Stewart changed the sentence he handed down last month for Dennis Young, who pleaded guilty to twice selling significant quantities of OxyContin.

But those upset at the relative laxness of the community corrections
sentence Young received last month will be hard pressed to see the new
sentence as the correction that Etowah County District Attorney James
Hedgspeth sought from the court.

Young originally received a 12-year sentence for each count of trafficking
and unlawful distribution, but the sentence was split and he was ordered to
serve three years in community corrections.

Law enforcement officers, prosecutors and others spoke out against the
sentence, believing that trafficking charges involving a dangerous drug
like OxyContin - and involving a former member of the Attalla Board of
Education and a U.S. Postal Service employee - warranted some time behind bars.

Hedgspeth found greater cause to complain and filed a motion saying by law,
a community corrections sentence was not allowed for someone convicted of
these crimes.

Stewart, noting that the community corrections director "now advises that
despite similar placements throughout the state, that the defendant may not
be acceptable ..." for the program, changed his order and put Young on five
years probation with electronic monitoring by community corrections during
the first year.

It is a different sentence, but not exactly a harsher or more restrictive one.

Judges do not have to punish people convicted or who plead guilty with
sentences that please the district attorney, the police or people who write
editorials for newspapers or letters to them. But all those people have to
live with the effects of this kind of sentence on the community - where
dealing drugs may seem a more worthwhile crime if probation is the kind of
time one does when caught.