Jewish World Review Sept. 6, 2002 / 29 Elul, 5762
Debra J. Saunders
Unequal before the law
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
This just in: The Alabama federal judge who
sentenced a black nonviolent first-time drug offender
to three consecutive sentences of life without parole
in 1993 just has sentenced a white
lawyer-turned-drug-dealer to four months in a
work-release facility.
Why the disparity? John Mark Greer pleaded guilty.
He's a lawyer who no doubt understands how the
federal courts punish defendants who try to beat a
rap.
College student Clarence Aaron, 23 at the time of his
sentencing, pleaded not guilty.
According to a story by Mobile Register reporter Joe
Danborn, the feds prosecuted Greer for selling
cocaine "in quantities ranging from an ounce to
several grams." The feds charged Aaron for moving
larger quantities of crack, after he dabbled in the drug
world by setting up two drug deals between two
dealers.
Federal laws are harsher for crack than cocaine.
Greer was caught peddling powder cocaine from his
office and Mobile bars, while Aaron's charges involved
crack.
Crack offenders are predominantly black, while
cocaine offenders span many racial groups. A dealer
who peddles 500 grams of powdered cocaine
automatically gets a five-year sentence for a first
offense, according to Eric Sterling, who as a
congressional aide helped write the 1984 sentencing
laws, and in repentence, now heads the Criminal
Justice Policy Foundation. The threshold for crack
cocaine is 100 times lower; it's 5 grams.
Another difference between Aaron and Greer: Greer
wore a wire and helped the feds collar two higher
level dealers. Aaron didn't offer up a dealer. His
Boston attorney Gregg Shapiro explained that
because Aaron was a novice in the dealing world, he
had "little or nothing to offer prosecutors."
And Aaron wasn't a white lawyer.
"Obviously, we're not dealing with a run-of-the-mill
drug dealer," Judge Charles Butler Jr. explained, after
he agreed to give Greer the leniency he denied
Aaron.
And: "As the court looks across the bench at you,
I'm struck by the fact that you've been given every
opportunity in life to avoid being here today. You
knew the law. You knew the consequences. You
knew the severity of it."
Yes, Greer knew the severity of the law -- and unlike
Aaron, he knew how to get around it. So, Aaron is
serving life without parole and Greer gets four months
in a facility, and four months wearing an electronic
monitor. (He also was disbarred.)
The answer, Sterling noted, isn't to sentence Greer to
more time. There's little public interest in putting
lawyers with drug habits in prison for decades. But it
also doesn't serve the public to put Clarence Aaron in
prison for life -- for two drug deals, one of which never
happened.
Some readers may find Aaron's draconian sentence
comforting -- proof that drug lords do hard time. Nice
dream, but according to the U.S. Court of Appeals in
Chicago: "The more serious the defendant's crimes,
the lower the sentence -- because the greater his
wrongs, the more information and assistance he has
to offer to a prosecutor."
Clarence Aaron supporters say he was a good
student who had stayed out of trouble until his
grandfather, who raised him since he was 10, died.
Then he made some bad moves, and he got caught.
Maybe he wasn't so innocent, but he had no record
until this arrest. And I know that when I think of
criminals who deserve life without parole, it's because
they're killers, rapists, child molesters, or real drug
kingpins. Not wannabe kingpins, whose biggest
crime is not being a snitch.
If the system can find leniency for a white lawyer who
betrayed his profession to sell drugs, it can find
leniency for Clarence Aaron. President Bush should
commute his sentence.
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© 2000, Creators Syndicate
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