drugcrimedefender

Canadian Prisoner Exchanges

Here on the Canadian border, it can be very helpful to have the option for Canadian clients to have the option of going back home on a "prisoner exchange."  Essentially, after serving 1 year in an American jail, a Canadian can apply to be exchanged for an American prisoner (in the Federal System).  Attached is the Canadian Embassy's publication on the prisoner exchange program.  Another key aspect of the program is that the U.S. Attorney has to agree-so it helps to have been on their good side before sentencing. 

Download canadian_prisoner_program.pdf

GPS Tracking on the Uptick

I have noticed that the police are increasingly using GPS tracking devices to obtain evidence of drug activity.  The typical pattern is for the police to draft an affidavit describing the suspected drug activity "based on my training and experience" and seek permission to place a secret GPS transmitter on the vehicle-even including court permission to hardwire the device to the vehicle's power source.  In the past year it seems that GPS has become almostthe norm in my drug cases.  The technology is described here and here.

Top Drug Prosecutor Under Investigation for Child Porn

This goes with my experience that sex cases cut accross all socioeconomic lines and are not confined to stereotypical drooling monsters hiding in the trailer park.

From the Bangor Daily News:

An assistant attorney general who’s reportedly under investigation for alleged possession of child porn has been fired.

Officials say James Cameron, who’s in charge of the Maine’s drug prosecutors, was fired Friday after a lengthy investigation. WGME-TV reported a day earlier that Cameron was subject of an investigation into child pornography and that his computer had been seized.

David Loughran, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office, confirmed that Cameron was fired. But he declined to comment on a possible criminal investigation.

Washington County Suspends OPS WITH MDEA

From the Bangor Daily News:

MACHIAS - Sheriff Donnie Smith of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department has ordered his staff members not to work with the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency until further notice.

Smith made the order in a memorandum that was sent out Friday to his department’s patrol deputies and other law enforcement officers.

"Until further notice all operations with Maine Drug Enforcement Agency are suspended," the memo reads. "No personnel from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office will participate in any operation involving Maine Drug Enforcement."

On Sunday, Smith said a DVD he recently acquired that shows an MDEA agent engaged in "disturbing" behavior is the reason behind his decision. He declined to identify the agent.

"The entire agency’s credibility is in question until this is cleared up," Smith said Sunday during a phone interview with the Bangor Daily News. "The whole thing is inappropriate. It’s very damaging, I think."

Smith said the video is about two hours long and is believed to have been recorded in the summer of 2006. It shows an MDEA agent, in an apparent attempt at humor, flashing his badge, drinking a beer and then driving off in a car.

It also shows the agent and others discharging weapons and engaged in activity Smith called "indecent exposure." One of the other people in the two-year-old video is a man who recently was convicted and sentenced for possession of child pornography, the sheriff said.

Smith said that if the agent was intoxicated when he was firing weapons, he could be charged with reckless conduct.

I don't know anything about this situation but it sounds like some personality conflicts are mixed up in the background here.

Gun Rights and Felon In Possession Cases

OK-its not a drug case but I ran across this article at Sentencing Law and Policy that references a creative attempt to overcome a felon-in-possession charge by arguing that non-violent offenses should not be proper predicates to such a charge.  The post includes a downloadable version of the brief.

Not a way to influence the sentencing judge!

From the Bangor Daily News:

ROCKLAND, Maine - A local man was arrested Thursday on charges of terrorizing an undercover agent.

According to police, Richard Wentworth, 38, had discovered the identity and cell phone number of an undercover MDEA agent who had been purchasing illegal drugs from Wentworth’s brother, Daniel Wentworth, 36, of Warren.

Richard Wentworth made several calls to the agent and on several occasions threatened to kill the agent, according to the arrest report.

Italian Immigration Patterns in New York City

From the New York Times:

Professor Diner also noted the tendency to compare Jews and Italians –- whose peak immigration numbers occurred at roughly the same period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — though she drew some important distinctions. Italian migration early on was heavily male, and some one-third of Italians returned to Italy. Jewish migration was more evenly split between men and women, and returning to anti-Semitic communities in Europe was impossible.

Italians largely came from agricultural backgrounds, whereas Jews were more likely to come from industrial and urban backgrounds. Their relatively higher skills and literacy accelerated their move out of the industrial workforce and into small independent businesses. Both Italians and Jews, Professor Diner said, tended to work for their ethnic kinsmen.

“New York never became the center of Italian life in the United States,” Professor Diner said, while “Jews, on the other hand, also arrived in overwhelming numbers in New York and most of them never left.”

Joseph J. Salvo, the director of the Population Division at the Department of City Planning and one of New York’s leading demographers, spoke next.

He traced the “profound shift” in immigrant population patterns since the 1965 immigration law ended the quota system that had barred most immigrants since the 1920s.

In 1970, 18.2 percent of the city’s population was foreign-born; by 2005, 36.6 percent were.

In 1970, the leading countries of origin for the city’s foreign-born were Italy, Poland, the Soviet Union, Germany, Ireland, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, the United Kingdom, Australia and Jamaica. By 2000, the list had changed: the Dominican Republic, China, Jamaica, Mexico, Guyana, Ecuador, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, India and Colombia.

Some Crack Cocaine Relief

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Monday said judges may impose shorter prison terms for crack cocaine crimes, enhancing judicial discretion to reduce the disparity between sentences for crack and cocaine powder.

By a 7-2 vote, the court said that a 15-year sentence given to Derrick Kimbrough, a black veteran of the 1991 war with Iraq, was acceptable, even though federal sentencing guidelines called for Kimbrough to receive 19 to 22 years.

''In making that determination, the judge may consider the disparity between the guidelines' treatment of crack and powder cocaine offenses,'' Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her majority opinion.

The decision was announced ahead of a vote scheduled for Tuesday by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which sets the guidelines, that could cut prison time for up to an estimated 19,500 federal inmates convicted of crack crimes.

The Sentencing Commission recently changed the guidelines to reduce the disparity in prison time for the two crimes. New guidelines took effect Nov. 1 after Congress took no action to overturn the change. Tuesday's vote is whether to apply the guidelines retroactively.

In a separate sentencing case that did not involve crack cocaine, the court also said judges have discretion to impose more lenient sentences than federal guidelines recommend.

. . .

In the other case, the court, also by a 7-2 vote, upheld a sentence of probation for Brian Gall for his role in a conspiracy to sell 10,000 pills of ecstasy. U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt of Des Moines, Iowa, determined that Gall had voluntarily quit selling drugs several years before he was implicated, stopped drinking, graduated from college and built a successful business. The guidelines said Gall should have been sent to prison for 30 to 37 months.

''The sentence imposed by the experienced district judge in this case was reasonable,'' Justice John Paul Stevens said in his majority opinion.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, David Souter, Ginsburg and Stevens formed the majority in both cases.

The cases are Kimbrough v. U.S., 06-6330, and Gall v. U.S., 06-7949.

Cracked windshield equals probable cause to stop

From the Manchester Union Leader

Three Manchester residents were arrested yesterday on drug charges after a state trooper pulled over their car for a cracked windshield.

Trooper Derek Holston stopped the car at 3:45 p.m. on Interstate 93.

The car was searched and, police said, marijuana, cocaine and drug paraphernalia was found inside it.

Arrested were Cristy L. Demers, 29, of 329 Harvard St., charged with possession and transportation of a controlled drug and possession of drug paraphernalia; Bethany Rose Sullivan, 21, of Cedar Street, and Jeffrey Laroche, 18, of 119 Ash St., both charged with possession of a controlled drug and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Heroin Overdose Antidote Kit Available in Massachusetts

From the Boston Globe:

State health authorities will start supplying addicts next month with a kit containing two doses of a medication that can reverse a potentially lethal overdose within minutes, hoping to reverse a tide of heroin deaths sweeping Massachusetts.

The initiative by the Department of Public Health mirrors a similar project in Boston, where at least 66 overdoses have been reversed since the program began a year ago.

. . .

"We are aware sadly that despite our efforts, there are people who will not be ready for treatment, and we want to prevent them from dying from a fatal overdose before we have an opportunity to convince them to get into treatment," said Auerbach, stressing that treatment remains the state's priority.

But some substance abuse specialists criticize the distribution of Narcan to addicts, arguing that the practice encourages continued use and delays entry into treatment. Some also question whether it is wise medically to have one addict squirting Narcan up the nose of another user who is overdosing.

. . .

Narcan has been administered for decades in hospital emergency rooms and by paramedics, but time is crucial: Heroin races to regions of the brain that control breathing. Too much heroin dangerously slows breathing, starving the heart of oxygen and causing it to stop beating. The whole process can take just three to four minutes, making it essential to have the antidote readily available.

Heroin attaches itself to receptors in the brain, like a key sliding into a lock. But Narcan wrenches heroin out of brain receptors, taking the place of the opiate and reversing the devastating reduction in breathing.

Narcan, known generically as naloxone, was developed as an antidote for overdoses. It is not habit-forming and causes no long-term side effects, although the sudden reversal of a heroin high can induce vomiting, specialists said. A single dose costs about $20.

"It's a remarkably safe drug," said Dr. Peter Moyer, medical director for Boston's fire, police, and emergency medical services. "I've used gallons of it in my life to treat patients."