That this kind of thing still happens in America is almost unbelievable.
BATON ROUGE -- Is 18 years in prison without the possibility of parole too harsh for a man arrested with 18 grams of marijuana? The Louisiana Supreme Court's chief justice thinks so, and she blasted her colleagues for upholding the punishment.
In a withering dissent Wednesday, Chief Justice Bernette Johnson called it "outrageous" and "ridiculous" that the state's highest court affirmed the lengthy prison sentence for such a small amount of marijuana -- enough for at least 18 marijuana cigarettes.
By Matt Ferner
A jury found Howard guilty of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, and in 2014, a judge sentenced him to 18 years in prison under the state’s “habitual offender” law because of three prior felonies Howard had on his record. Howard had appealed his conviction, but Louisiana’s Supreme Court ruled this week that there was enough evidence that Howard intended to distribute the marijuana. When investigators searched his home they found four separate baggies of marijuana inside of a larger bag, according to court documents.
She also criticized the sentencing ― exactly 18 years in prison for 18 grams of marijuana, or one year per gram ― as suggesting the court acted arbitrarily rather than as “the result of careful consideration of the appropriate sentencing factors.”
Imprisoning Howard for what Johnson called an “extreme length of time” will cost the state about $23,000 annually ― or $400,000 total over the course of the full sentence, which, she writes, “provides little societal value and only serves to further burden our financially strapped state and its tax payers.”
Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the nation. This case sheds some light on how Louisiana earned that draconian distinction in a country that just went on a three decade incarceration binge fueled by candidate grand standing to show how tough on crime they were.