Law
17 Year-Old Faces 10 Years For $20 Weed Sale
From the NORML Weekly Press Release - January 22, 1998
Fayette, MO:
A Missouri judge sentenced an adolescent first time offender to ten years in state prison after finding him guilty of selling $20 of marijuana within 2,000 feet of the Central Methodist College. State law classifies the offense as a Class A Felony that carries a sentencing range of ten years to life.
Billy Polson, 17, helped Alex Martinez acquire 3.4 grams of marijuana from students at the Missouri college campus. Martinez, who dated Polson's sister at the time, later revealed that he was working undercover for the Boonville Police Department. He also admitted purchasing malt liquor for the defendant shortly before Polson agreed to sell him marijuana.
Missouri attorney and NORML board member Dan Viets, who represented Polson, called the felony conviction horribly unfair.
I told the judge that if he wanted to help Polson get along with his life, then giving him a felony conviction record was the worst thing he could do, Viets said. He explained that the judge had the option of placing Polson on probation without a conviction.
Viets also said that the prosecutor in the case, Greg Robinson, could have charged Polson with a lesser offense to avoid the excessive sentence. Viets said that Robinson wished to make an example out of Polson before the upcoming elections.
Attorney Tanya Kangas, Director of Litigation for The NORML Foundation, questioned why law enforcement would use its limited resources to target someone like Polson. Alex Martinez was a reserve officer with the Boonville Police Department, she explained. He was paid to become intimate with a young woman to gain the trust of her younger brother. The police department paid Alex to encourage a minor to drink alcohol.
The department paid Alex to arrange a transaction close to the college to increase Bill's sentence under a law designed to protect elementary school children from drug dealers.
In this case, the law served to incarcerate a kid who is younger than the attendees of the nearby school. Since when is this the proper role of law enforcement?
Books Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs:
A Policy Guide
This book is intended as a supplemental text for a variety of courses in departments of criminal justice, sociology, and political science.
Beginning with a discussion of the administration of criminal justice in the United States, the book evaluates conservative and liberal crime control proposals, gun and crimes, drug policy, the war on drugs, and the legalization of drugs.
Sense and Nonsense About Crime and Drugs The American Disease:
Origins of Narcotic Control
A book more for the student, than the average reader. This is a classic study of the development of drug laws in the U.S.
David Musto examines the relations between public outcry and the creation of prohibitive drug laws from the end of the Civil War to the Reagan and Clinton administrations.
The American Disease Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed
and What We Can Do About It:
A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs
Written by a man who has worked as a federal prosecutor, a trial judge, and a California superior court justice. The author informs readers of the amount of money spent, the crime caused, and the lives ruined by the war on drugs.
Many people in government, legal, and other positions who are in favor of the war on drugs see it as an easy means of getting some of the billions of dollars wasted on it each year in the US.
Putting nonviolent offenders in prison and diverting law enforcement resources that could be used to serve and protect society as a whole might not be a very good decision.
Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed
More Drug Law Books Drug Law books from Amazon
Drug Law Related More Drug Law Articles Various Drug Law Links