Criminal sentence was warranted

Your front-page coverage, 'Facing the reality of mandated sentencing,” Monday, June 8, necessitates a response regarding its depiction of the 'reality” of federal sentencing laws and the facts portrayed in the spotlighted methamphetamine trafficking case, arising before US District Judge Mark Bennett in the Northern District of Iowa.

The article sympathetically portrayed the criminal defendant, Mark Weller, as he turned his life as a drug addict into one as a significant methamphetamine dealer. But the article minimized the real and significant extent of Weller's involvement in the drug trade.

Federal sentencing laws, including the Sentencing Guidelines and the statutory mandatory minimum penalties, correlate the seriousness of a drug trafficking offenses primarily with the weight of the dangerous drug being trafficked. In Weller's case, evidence established he was responsible for distributing 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine, much of it nearly pure.

This is five times the amount necessary to trigger a 10-year minimum sentence and is a quantity that would have a street value well over $200,000. Judge Bennett's opinion also reveals more about the 'unregistered rifle” referenced in passing in your article: on one occasion during a traffic stop 'methamphetamine was found on a passenger in the vehicle,

Weller's sister, and [an] SKS rifle was found on the front seat area between Weller and another passenger.” SKS semi-automatic assault rifles are a gun of choice for drug dealers because they are especially well suited for killing people.

The range set by the Sentencing Guidelines (which is a presumptively reasonable range but is not binding on judges) was 151 to 188 months and the statutory minimum (which is binding on judges) was 120 months. From your article we learn that Judge Bennett, who personally thought there was no useful purpose in a 10 year sentence, 'would have given him a year in rehab.”

The facts highlighted above underscore the seriousness of Weller's criminal conduct - conduct inherently dangerous and destructive to countless others - and also demonstrate why Congress wisely requires that judges apply at least a minimum sentences for such serious crimes.

' Steven H. Cook is President of the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys. Comments: 5868 Mapledale Plaza, suite 104, Woodbridge, VA, 22193