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Time Magazine: Reforming Crack-Cocaine Laws, but Leaving Injustice Intact?

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Reforming Crack-Cocaine Laws, but Leaving Injustice Intact? By Theo Emery / Washington Friday, Aug. 07, 2009 In early 2006, a young man named DeJarion Echols stood in a federal courtroom in Waco, Texas, and pleaded for leniency. After police found about 40 grams of crack cocaine, cash and an assault rifle in his bedroom, the promising athlete and father pleaded guilty to crack distribution and gun charges. "I made a bad choice" by dealing crack to pay for college, Echols, then 23, told U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. According to a court transcript, the judge declared in apparent frustration, "This is one of those situations where I'd like to see a congressman sitting before me." Then he did what federal law required: Smith sentenced Echols to two back-to-back 10-year prison sentences, one for each charge...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on August 07, 2009 (boomark / email).