Pubdate: Tue, 26 Jul 2005
Source: Daily Progress, The (VA)
Copyright: 2005 Media General Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.dailyprogress.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1545
Author: Liesel Nowak
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

PRISON TIME IN DRUG CASE CALLED CRUEL

Dubbed an "armed career criminal," a Greene County man charged with 
growing marijuana in Shenandoah National Park has been sentenced to 
15 years in prison for possessing drugs and a firearm.

Lawyers for Edison P. Crawford are appealing the sentence, arguing in 
a motion filed Monday that the penalty is a violation of their 
client's Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

The Bacon Hollow resident remains free on bond pending the outcome of 
his appeal.

After a yearlong investigation, federal authorities charged Crawford 
in November 2002 with harvesting $66,400 worth of marijuana in 
Shenandoah National Park. He pleaded guilty to possessing marijuana 
and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon in a June 2003 plea 
bargain with federal prosecutors.

Other charges, including manufacturing a controlled substance and 
possession of marijuana with the intent to distribute, were dropped 
as a result of the agreement. Prosecutors also agreed to recommend a 
sentence on the low-end of sentencing guidelines, believed to be 
between 18 and 24 months.

Crawford's criminal history, however, qualifies him for a 15-year 
mandatory minimum sentence under the federal Armed Career Criminal 
Act. That was the sentence that Judge Norman K. Moon handed down 
Friday in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville.

In the 1970s, Crawford was convicted of three counts of breaking and 
entering, according to a motion filed by Crawford's lawyer, John K. 
Zwerling. In the past 35 years, according to the motion, Crawford was 
convicted of only one misdemeanor: shooting a bear on federal land.

"Mr. Crawford's convictions are so old that Congress has declined to 
have them count in his criminal history scoring, and they are 
non-qualifying convictions for considerations as a Career Criminal, 
yet somehow they qualify to make him an Armed Career Criminal," 
Zwerling argues in the motion. "The sentence in this case is facially 
unjust and is so out of proportion as to hold the federal sentencing 
scheme up to ridicule."

Zwerling is asking the court to overturn the 15-year sentence and 
impose a prison term in the 18-24 month range. The Alexandria lawyer 
points to a case in which a federal judge in Utah found a 55-year 
mandatory minimum sentence to be "unjust, irrational and cruel" but 
imposed it anyway, based on Supreme Court rulings upholding such sentences.

On appeal, the Utah case, United States v. Angelos, spurred 100 
federal judges and U.S. attorneys to write briefs arguing that the 
sentence was unconstitutional, Zwerling writes.

Further, the criminal conduct triggering the mandatory minimum 
sentence was "extraordinarily minimal," Zwerling writes. When police 
searched Crawford's home, they found two rifles not locked away and 
numerous other hunting firearms in a locked gun case.
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