An appeals court on Monday upheld the 55-year mandatory sentence of a Utah man who carried a firearm while dealing pot, a penalty that had been decried as unconstitutional by dozens of former judges and prosecutors and as unjust by the sentencing judge himself.If he'd only been an out-of-his-mind drunken cop firing that gun out the window of a moving car...
Tags: gun, marijuana
1 comment:
Something stinks to high high heaven. Did anyone else notice the inconsistencies. If he carried an ankle gun at the first meet, how would they know unless he was wearing shorts. Assuming he wasn't so attired, if they had frisked him, there wouldn't have been a second and third sale, now would there?
Next, this quote ".....At the other drug buys, there were firearms in the vicinity." What does that mean? Hunters lived nearby and had cased rifles in their gun safe? Or more likely, the firearms in the 'vicinity' were the ones the cops, undercover and otherwise, brought?
I have no particular affection for the drug dealer and gang member, but this sounds more like a turf war between rival gangs. Whereas the actions of our criminal in this case harm only a small number of people in his local arena, the (should be) criminal actions of the other gang affect the entire body of the American people in a damaging way.
That sort of makes the incarcerated at best the moral equal of the judges, cops and prosecutors in this case, or at worst their moral superior. What a damnable shame that.
I vote for moral superior. My reasoning is that all the judges involved say the sentence is wrong and unjust. None had the courage to declare it so, officially. Despite what the USSC has or has said about such prior, they are not the only arbiter of constitutionality, nor are they the final arbiter, something even most lawyers don't know. But then, training will never replace real education.
If these judges found in their opinions that this was wrong it was their duty to declare it so and let the process proceed to another review if necessary. They failed in their duty due to lack of integrity and honor.
So, even though, I have no real sympathy for the convicted,he must be considered the moral superior of all the good ol' boys and girls that 'go along to get along', instead of doing their duty.
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