MSN Slate's Jurisprudence on mandatory sentences

Subject: Bench Pressed From: GeorgeJMyersJr-2 Date: Nov 24 2004 7:15AM This reminds me of Tony. Tony went to Attica Prison in New York State (ever hear "Attica State" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono? Was a 45 rpm? Had a Yoko solo on one side?) for five years for two marijuana cigarettes because his father was a defense trial lawyer with a last name that ended in a vowel. He had just bought a camera from "a friend" in the street" and the cops raided his apartment. That was before the Rockefeller laws in NY State, which are now the toughest in the USA, so tough and preset, judges bridle under them as they have nothing to judge, why bother? Unfortunately it places minor (and minors) in the system, and the crack dealers in the next State (they know who they are) get away. One 16 year old jumped from his mother's side out a 10 story window to his death awaiting to see a judge on a small marijuana possession charge. As a jury foreperson I have personally been confounded by a recent addition to the laws. Within 1000' feet of a school special laws are applied in City of New York, whether there's a 20 foot high chain link fence between the deal and the school. Meanwhile the law does not apply if the deal goes on in the building next door to the school! Different laws apply to a domicile vs. a street I suppose. I sat through hundreds of cases in the Borough of the Bronx in one session of four weeks for $40 a day. I had to sign as a citizen to any charges the Grand Jury found in a simple majority worthy of District Attorney prosecution (mostly $5 and $10 deals, which in the Constitution of the US, you could not have a jury trial for as it states only "$20" cases make the bar for jury trials of your peers) even though I disagreed with almost every case (they were all being secretly videotaped undercover by their sergeants (over 3000 transactions) and when I found this out in an exclusive to the "NY Post" and requested the tapes while a regular jury person at another session, ignored by the recent A.D.A. (female) from Erie County, which includes the second largest city in NY, Buffalo, NY) still publicly part of the record. Change it, first revoke the "Rockefeller" laws, he would.