T A B L E+T A L K Will Clinton's African tour finally remind Americans of the continent's significance in world affairs? Share your thoughts in the International Issues area of Table Talk D A I L Y+Q U O T E Clash of the titanic egos R E C E N T L Y Justice Department considers investigating key Starr witness By Murray Waas FBI recommends probe of alleged payments to Whitewater accuser David Hale (03/27/98) A massive journalistic breakdown By Mollie Dickenson How the elite media has gotten the Clinton "scandals" all wrong (03/27/98) Behind the Clinton cocaine smear By Murray Waas Conservative multimillionaire funded secret investigation of Clinton's alleged drug connections (03/26/98) Mission impossible By Jeff Stein A day in the life of a U.N. arms inspector (03/25/98) Arkansas state trooper denies key part of "Troopergate" story By Murray Waas But Los Angeles Times reporter stands by his story -- denies he "put words in (trooper's) mouth" (03/24/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		"HELL NO, WE WON'T THROW AWAY THE KEY" | PAGE 2 OF 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - It wasn't just Webb's pitiable state that roused Sporkin's conscience. It was the DEA's routinely Kafkaesque practice of "sentencing entrapment" -- in this case, the DEA agent's deliberate instigation of a larger drug buy in order to trigger a heavier sentence. All this led Sporkin to commit a rare judicial version of civil disobedience (much as Hallinan now threatens in San Francisco). He declined to hand Webb the huge sentence required by law, which he describes as "grossly disproportional to the crime." Instead of a decade behind bars, Sporkin sentenced Webb to 41 months, worrying that "even 41 months is much too long for you." What's more, Sporkin virtually dared the outraged U.S. attorney's office to challenge his ruling: "I realize that you people hold all the weapons in this war on drugs, and I'll give you an easy one to get me reversed," he declared. And appeal the Justice Department did: to a three-judge appeals court panel headed by Judge Douglas Ginsburg, the former pot smoker. And it was Ginsburg who four weeks ago wrote a blistering take-down of Sporkin, thundering that the latter's attack of judicial conscience "wreaked havoc with the administration of justice." Sporkin, Ginsburg charged, "abused his discretion," and -- worse! -- "The United States Attorney and the Federal Public Defender each had to write learned briefs and this court had to hear argument and write an opinion -- all at considerable expense to the public." Ginsburg, in a unanimous appeals court ruling, ordered Sporkin to impose a sentence of 70-to-87 months (slightly lower than it otherwise would have been because of recalculations under the complicated sentencing guidelines). But Sporkin had not walked so far out on a limb only to be blown back by Ginsburg's tirade. Rather than impose the appeals court's longer sentence on Webb, he decided to take himself off the case in protest. And in a memorandum that has been circulating in Washington legal circles for several weeks, he blasted both Ginsburg's "intemperate remarks" as well as the whole system of drug prosecution. "A humane society does not incarcerate its sick and feeble," Sporkin wrote. "Clearly a sentencing system that considers only the amount of drugs involved and ignores completely the reasons for the actors' conduct would be contrary to this nation's values." Surprisingly, this Reagan-appointed pillar of the Washington establishment is not the only judge in town to protest such insane drug laws. In the D.C. circuit alone, Senior Judge David Oberdorfer has called 10-to-20-year mandatory minimum sentences for minor drug dealers cruel and unusual punishment. A handful of judges in New York and elsewhere have taken similar stands. Such cases of judicial civil disobedience, like this week's needle-exchange controversy and California's confrontation with the feds over medical marijuana, reveal deep and growing fissures in the official consensus on drug policy. It's notable that none of the figures involved are wild-eyed libertarians: They are jurists, prosecutors, White House officials, mayors. When the history of the war on drugs is written, early 1998 may come to be seen as a defining moment, rather like the Tet offensive in a different war 30 years ago, revealing fundamental rifts from which broader resistance and protest may yet emerge. SALON | March 31, 1998 Bruce Shapiro writes the Law & Order column for the Nation, and is a regular contributor to Salon. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -