Criminal Law Attorneys - An Overview



Federal drug laws produce a labeling issue. When you hear the term "drug trafficker," you may consider Pablo Escobar or Walter White, however the reality is that under federal law, drug traffickers consist of individuals who purchase pseudo-ephedrine for their methamphetamine dealership; act as middleman in a series of small deals; and even pick up a travel suitcase for the wrong friend. Thanks to conspiracy laws, everyone on the totem pole can be subject to the very same serious necessary minimum sentences.

To the men and women who prepared our federal drug laws in 1986, this may come as a surprise. According to Sen. Robert Byrd, cosponsor of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, the reason to attach 5- and ten-year compulsory sentences to drug trafficking was to penalize "the kingpins-- the masterminds who are really running these operations", and the mid-level dealerships.

Fast forward twenty-five years. Today, almost everybody convicted of a federal drug criminal activity is founded guilty of "drug trafficking", which usually results in a minimum of a 5- or ten-year mandatory jail sentence. That's a lot of time in federal jail for lots of people who are minor parts of drug trade, the vast bulk of whom are men and women of color.

This is the system that federal district Judge Mark Bennett sees every day. Judge Bennett rests on the district court in northern Iowa, and he deals with a great deal of drug cases. "Never ever could I have pictured," he writes in a current piece in The Country, "that ... after nineteen years [as a federal district court judge], I would have sent out 1,092 of my fellow citizens to federal jail for compulsory minimum sentences ranging from sixty months to life without the possibility of release. The majority of these ladies, guys and young people are nonviolent addict." What about the kingpins? "I can count them on one hand," he states.

The numbers can't convey the unreasonable disaster of it all. This is how he explains a recent drug trafficking case:

I just recently sentenced a group of more than twenty offenders on meth trafficking conspiracy charges. Eighteen were 'pill smurfers,' as federal prosecutors put it, suggesting their function amounted to frequently purchasing and providing cold medicine to meth cookers www.criminallawyerslasvegas.com/drug-conspiracy-defense-las-vegas/ in exchange for extremely small, low-grade amounts to feed their extreme addictions. All of them faced necessary minimum sentences of sixty or 120 months.



They discovered that in 2005, the bulk of the lowest-level cocaine- and crack-trafficking accused-- guys and females described as "street-level dealers", "couriers/mules", and "renter/loader/lookout/ enabler/users"-- got five- or ten-year necessary jail sentences. This is especially true for crack-cocaine offenders, many of whom are black; despite the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, selling a little amount of crack cocaine (28 grams) carries the same obligatory minimum sentence-- 5 years-- as offering 500 grams of powder cocaine.

This is the truth for which proponents of serious federal drug laws need to account. We need to admit that our sentencing of small participants in the drug trade to jail terms meant for the leaders of large drug companies-- as a typical event, not as an exception.

If lengthy obligatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug addicts really worked, one may be able to justify them. I have actually seen how they leave hundreds of thousands of young children parent less and thousands of aging, infirm and passing away moms and dads childless.

Here, again, we have proof that Judge Bennett is best: long necessary sentences are unneeded for the majority of drug offenders. In 2002 and 2003, Michigan and New York repealed obligatory sentences for drug culprits and provided judges the power to enforce much shorter sentences, probation, or drug treatment.

He has seen mandatory laws written for the most serious, large-scale drug dealers applied to the men and women on the most affordable rungs of the drug trade, and he has seen it occur a lot. We when pictured that serious necessary sentences would be utilized to deal with the leaders of big drug operations.

If you have been charged with a drug related offense and need qualified representation, contact us to discuss your case.

Contact:

Mace Yampolsky & Associates
625 S 6th St.
Las Vegas, NV 89101
(702) 385-9777



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