Criminal Law: December 2007 Archives
The following appeared first over at our friends at Sports Law Blog. http://sports-law.blogspot.com/
In 1986, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act which, among other things, mandated sentences for offenses involving crack cocaine to be 100 times more severe than for crimes involving powdered cocaine. Many have seen this disparity in sentencing guidelines as reflecting the similar disparity in the way the law treats the poor and the not so poor. Whether true or not, crack cocaine is typically associated with urban neighborhoods while powdered cocaine is seen as the drug of choice in the Hollywood hills and townhouses of Manhattan.
What does this have to do with Sports Law?
A major impetus for the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was the death earlier that year of Len Bias, the University of Maryland basketball star and number one pick of the Boston Celtics. Bias reportedly died of a cocaine overdose.
And today, the Washington Post is reporting the tragic story of Willie Mays Aikens, the former Kansas City Royals first baseman noted for being the only player in baseball history to hit two homeruns in a game twice in the same World Series. In 1994, Aikens was sentenced to 15 years in prison for possessing 64 grams of crack cocaine, about the weight of a candy bar; to receive a similar sentence for possessing powdered cocaine, one would need to be caught with more than 6 ½ kilos or more than 14 pounds.
Aikens has become the symbol of what many see as the unequal treatment of the poor and minorities in America’s judicial system. As he told the Post, "The disparity, as far as I'm concerned, is totally wrong. This took me away from my family. My girls were 4 and 5 years old when I was sentenced. Now they're 18 and 19."
Aikens is not scheduled to be released from the federal penitentiary in Jessup, Georgia until 2012.
Alan Milstein
The death penalty in the United States may well be gasping its last breath, at least outside of Texas. As we previously discussed, last week New Jersey bcame the first state in forty years to outlaw executions. The next day, the United Nations passed a resolution calling for the suspension of the death penalty worldwide. The resolution cited the two major arguments against the death penalty: “There is no conclusive evidence of the death penalty's deterrence value” and “any miscarriage or failure of justice in the death penalty's implementation is irreversible and irreparable."
On January 7th, the United States Supreme Court will hear argument on whether lethal injection as a means of execution constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Because of that pending matter, executions across the nation have been stayed since September 25th, though Texas hurried to perform the last one before the deadline when Judge Sharon Keller disgraced the judiciary by refusing to accept the late papers of the defendant's attorneys because, she said, "We close at 5."
More than 3300 inmates currently sit on death row units across the country, though this year there were only 42 executions, a thirteen year low.
Alan Milstein
Attorneys for Christopher Pittman filed a Petititon for Cert with the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday. Pittman was 12 years old when he shot his grandparents at their
Zoloft is the most widely prescribed antidepressant in the
David Chase testified in a federal courtroom in Trenton that he wanted to cry when he learned he was being sued by a former New Jersey municipal judge who claims he should be paid for helping to create the hit HBO series. The suit had been dismissed twice by presiding Judge Joel A. Pisano but those dismissals were overturned. Chase testified:"You're a grown man you're not supposed to cry. . .But I felt like crying. . .The Sopranos' was me, my mother, my uncles. . .It was my life. . .. It made me sick, absolutely sick."
The case should wrap up on Wednesday with closing arguments and a jury verdict. During his testimony, Chase talked about the genesis of his hit show: He said he wanted to create a "satire of American corporate life" and wanted to explore the business practices of the criminal enterprise system:"I never understood the money," he testified, "Who keeps the records?"
Governor Jon Corzine on Monday signed legislation that eliminates capital punishment as a sentence in New Jesey and replaces it with life in prison without parole. At the same time, he commuted the death sentences of the eight men presently on death row at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton.
The Governor announced:"These commutations, along with today’s bill signing, brings to a close in New Jersey the protracted moral and practical debate on the death penalty."
New Jersey, which had not executed any prisoner in the 25 years since the death penalty was reinstated, thus becomes the first state to legislatively repeal the death penalty since 1965 and also the first since the U.S. Supreme Court reauthorized capital punishment in 1976.
Pending before the United States Supreme Court is a case involving the issue of whether lethal injection as a means of execution is cruel and unusual punishment and, thus, unconstitutional.
