Andrew Ajaka

Mr. Stein
Legal Ethics- Period 4
Due: On Presentation day (1/12/17-1/23/17)
Abstract
To what extent is Mandatory Minimum Sentencing a problem in the United States?
Mandatory Minimums are laws that establish a required minimum amount of jail
time that a person found guilty of a crime must receive. During the late 1980s, these federally
established mandatory minimums became a wildly popular tool for the government in their war
on drugs, however this does not make them right. This tool was taken complete advantage of by
federal prosecutors. Their ability to coerce defendants who want to take a case to trial into taking
the plea deal by threatening to choose charges with longer sentences then those filed with the
plea deal. The argument provided in support of mandatory minimums is that justice is blind
and that regardless of the circumstance in which a crime is committed and who it is committed
by, if one is guilty for this crime, they are to receive the same punishment as anyone else,
therefore introducing a federal regulation of lenient judges making rulings, especially in
regards to non-violent drug crimes, that were not fitting to the governments war on drugs. This
alongside the fact that these mandatory minimums are meant to scare people from participating
in the crime are, however, not enough to justify the negativity that follows mandatory
minimums. Firstly, the circumstances of an event should not be taken so lightly. For example, in
the case of Weldon Angelos, a 24-year-old who had sold small amounts of drugs to an informant
while he just so happened to be carrying a fire arm, the guidelines set by mandatory minimum
sentencing established that he was to receive 55 years in prison. 55 years for selling something
that is currently legal for recreational use in 4 states on a first offense. Even the judge who was
forced to give him this sentence felt that it was unfair. In an interview with ABC news, the judge
said that the amount of time that he received was equal to the sum of the mandatory minimums
for terrorism (20 years), child-rape (11 years), and hijacking an aircraft (24 years), which is
completely absurd. The argument that justice is blind doesnt work when the United States
Sentencing commission states that 74.3% of drug offenders that received these mandatory
minimum sentences were Black and Hispanic in 2011. Furthermore, the assertion that these
elongated sentences will scare off people who want to do these crimes is wildly unreasonable.
President of FAMM (families against mandatory minimums), Kevin Ring was a congressional
staffer who helped push mandatory minimums in the 1990s, however, after being arrested for
fraud and spending time with several inmates was able to come to the conclusion that these
mandatory minimums were not doing this. He said that most of them didnt know about the
severity of the punishments that came with the crimes they were committing. This problem can
be even seen as a breach on the established checks and balances system. The Drug Policy
alliance writes about how these federal laws [strip] judicial discretion and [impose] unduly long
prison sentences on minor offenders, violating common sense and fundamental notions of justice
and morality. This attempt at federal regulation does not allow the judicial system to function to
the maximum of its abilities and constitutional intents. This is not just a general problem
however. According to U.S. Sentencing Commission figures, the 79 percent of 5,669 sentenced
crack offenders in 2009 were black, versus 10 percent who were white and 10 percent who were
Hispanic. These figures reveal a racial disparity in regards to the specific denominations that
these mandatory minimum laws are affecting, specifically the African American community.
This coupled together with the vast problems with our prison industrial system are doing nothing
but hurting the Untied States. These first time offenders are not going into these prisons with a
criminal mentality, but with the unrealistic severity of their sentences, and the lack of aid that
prisons provide their prisoners with in regards to life outside the prison, they are exiting the
system with that very mentality.
Although during the Obama administration, a lot was done to address the
problem of mandatory minimum sentencing, it was not enough. Many mandatory minimums
were cut down, in which either the severity of the sentence was shortened or the requirement of
the incrimination were made larger to account for the present severity of the sentence, but this
did nothing to help those who have already fallen victim to this problem. Aside from reforms to
the prisons themselves, we should have some sort of board that reviews appeals made by inmates
that believe they have fallen victim to the unrealistic sentence established by mandatory
minimums so that those who are already incarcerated can receive justice. Further these
mandatory minimums should not be so out of proportion in regards to the difference of severity
of nonviolent drug charges and violent charges.
In order to do this presentation, I utilized a total of five sources. My first source
was an article from the New York Times named The Problem with Mandatory Minimum
Sentences, written by Rachel E. Barkow in order to talk about the power these mandatory
minimums give to the prosecutor in regards to whether or not the defendant takes the plea deal or
sends a case to trial. My second source was an interview orchestrated by ABC news of a former
prosecutor and judge which I used to talk about the case of Weldon Angelos and the absurdness
of his sentence in relation to the mandatory minimums of other crimes. Another source I used
was an article published by the Drug policy alliance that attempts to deliberate between the title
given by the federal government, the war on drugs, and their likening to the goals of the Jim
Crow laws instituted after the Civil War. In order to further the discussion of the affects that
these mandatory minimums have in regards to race I used an article published by usnews.com
that compared racial disparities in sentencing. For my final source, I simply went to the United
States Sentencing Commission and read the section of their congressional testimony that focused
on the Mandatory minimum penalties established in regards to drug offences.