Tuesday, December 7, 2004

Offending the concept of justice Via TalkLeft: Florida's Judge Gregory Posnell refused to apply guidline sentences for a drug conviction that would have called for 188 months for a 24-year-old with thyroid cancer, based on drug stings involving $500. And he let us know how he felt in his opinion (pdf). A guideline sentence in this case starkly illustrates the problem of attempting to fit the human experience into a discrete mathematical matrix. It just can’t be done, and this Court cannot in good conscience do it, because it offends the Court’s concept of justice. ... In the meantime, the “war on drugs” goes on. Others will undoubtedly replace Torrey Williams in the chain of drug commerce, and the Courts will continue to incarcerate them for long periods at alarming rates. More at Doug Berman's blog. 5:52:58 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Sorry for the inconvenience Some of my regular readers have had some difficulties lately. Comments have been moved to a new server, which hopefully will be much more robust, and some comments from the past couple of days may have been lost in the changeover (I have not deleted any comments). Also, I don't know if it's at all related, but some comcast customers have been unable to access salonblogs or other radio userland blogs for the past few days. That appears to be resolved now. Thanks for hanging in there and continuing to visit the Rant! (And don't forget to visit The Agitator, where I am doing some guest blogging.) 5:35:39 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []