Recht of toch maar krom?

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

http://www.fantasyfan.nl/extras/db_thrillerkrant_november_2002.pdf
Het verhaal over "XTC-smokkel en de lange arm van de Amerikaanse justitie" maakt duidelijk dat niet alleen de Amerikanen een probleem hebben
(dubbele bodem bedoeld), maar is toch nog geen reden om zo ver te gaan als onderstaand wordt aangegeven.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/snitch/etc/producer.html
What was the first story you came across in your research that really caught your attention?

It was the story of Joey Settembrino, an 18-year-old who was set up by a good friend who himself was caught with drugs. The friend asked Joey
to get some LSD for him. When Joey finally did that, he delivered it to the friend who was accompanied by a DEA agent. So obviously he was
caught red-handed, and he pled guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. But what really amazed me in this case was the fact that Joey had
no one he could set up to help himself get a reduction in his sentence so his father was told that he, the father, could go set up people--try to sell
them drugs--and if he were successful, and if the amount was large enough that would help reduce his son's prison term. To me, it seemed crazy--
here was a businessman who had nothing to do with drugs, and he was on his way to set up people so he can reduce his son's prison term--it made
no sense at all. But I realized no one else in the field thought that there was anything peculiar about it. The prosecutor kept saying, "What's wrong
with this? We do it all the time!" That is when I realized we live in different worlds, and maybe I should figure out how their world works.

Why do you think prosecutors do it? Do they really think they are prosecuting people they shouldn't be?

It's their job. The man who prosecuted Lula May Smith, for example, is very nice. He said he was praying that she'd be found not guilty. And yet
he prosecuted her. It was his job. And when you have a job, you have to do the best job you can. There's a lot of judges who cry and say, "I don't
want to do that. I didn't want to give this young man 30 years, but I have no choice, this is the law." So are they happy doing it or unhappy doing it?
It's hard to know. They won't exactly tell you. But it's their job. I don't blame them as much as I blame the laws.

Did you have a hard time getting prosecutors to talk to you?

It was never easy. It ranged from possible to very hard. In Mobile, Alabama, for example, it was next to impossible to talk to assistant prosecutors
who are the ones who handle the cases; these people are really afraid of the press. One woman prosecutor, who made an appointment with us, hid
in the bathroom when we came and wouldn't come out; then she called defense lawyers and warned them not to talk to us. Eventually they told us
that they were not allowed to talk to the press. Why? They gave no reason. Eventually we did manage to get the U.S. attorney of the region, who is
their boss and who did talk. As I mentioned before, I talked to the prosecutor who prosecuted Joey Settembrino. He was very nice, very open; the
problem was, as I said before, that he did not understand why I was surprised at the fact that he would allow a father to go set up people to help his
imprisoned son. At the end, his amazement at my amazement was actually helpful to me, because I realized that prosecutors routinely do things
which we, lay people, find almost immoral.

[knip]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/snitch/procon/sterling.html
How did these laws come about?

These laws came about in an incredible conjunction between politics and hysteria. It was 1986, Tip O'Neill comes back from the July 4th district
recess and everybody's talking about the death of the Boston Celtics pick, Len Bias. That's all his constituents are talking to him about. And he
has the insight, "Drugs, it's drugs. I can take this issue into the election." He calls the Democratic leadership together in the House of
Representatives and says, "I want a drug bill, I want it in four weeks." And it set off kind of a stampede. Everybody started trying to get out front
on the drug issue. ... I mean every committee ... not just the Judiciary Committee--Foreign Affairs, Ways and Means, Agriculture, Armed
Services. Everybody's got a piece of this out there, fighting to get their face on television, talking about the drug problem. And ... these
mandatories came in the last couple days before the Congressional recess, before they were all going to race out of town and tell the voters
about what they're doing to fight the war on drugs. No hearings, no consideration by the federal judges, no input from the Bureau of Prisons. Even
the DEA didn't testify. The whole thing is kind of cobbled together with chewing gum and baling wire. Numbers are picked out of air. And we see
what these consequences are of that kind of legislating. ... Ten-year mandatory minimum, routine sentences are 15, 20, 30 years, without parole.
... Then you have conspiracy, and suddenly ... you have people facing 50 years, people facing either life in virtual terms or as a real sentence.
That's what's happening. Fifteen thousand federal drug cases a year. Bulk of them mandatory minimum cases. Most of them minor offenders.
Only 10% of all the federal drug cases are high level traffickers. You wonder, who's asleep at the switch at the Justice Department? ... What you
have is conviction on the basis of testimony. You have drugless drug cases. You don't need powder, all you need is the witness to say, "I saw a
kilo,"...

With no drugs to be found?

There don't have to be drugs. People are amazed, "Well, aren't there drugs?" There don't have to be drugs. All there have to be are witnesses who
say, "I saw the drugs," or, "He said there were drugs." That's what you need.

Couldn't you guess this would happen?

I don't think any of us fully anticipated what these numbers would generate. Remember, at the time that we were doing this, the federal prison
population was in the range of 30,000. It's over 100,000 today. None of us envisioned that the Justice Department would so profoundly misuse
this statute. Congress said, "We're giving the Justice Department these high-level sentences so that you will go after the highest level
traffickers." DEA agents and assistant U.S. attorneys are misusing this statute, with the complicity of their managers in the Department of
Justice, to engage in what now has really become a pattern and practice of racial discrimination in almost overwhelmingly prosecuting people of
color for tiny amounts of drugs and sending them away for kingpin sentences.

[knip]

Groet,

Cees Binkhorst - cees at binkhorst.xs4all.nl

Een paar recente uitspraken:
'Als de VN relevant willen zijn, moeten ze precies doen wat ik zeg.'
'Ik weet dat ik tegen de wensen van de Security Council en de tekst
van het VN-verdrag in ga, maar ik doe het wel om een VN-resolutie
uit te voeren.'
Een oude uitspraak van Thomas Paine uit 1795 "Every man must
finally  see the necessity of  protecting the rights of others as the
most effectual security for his own"

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