Sick Transit

Boundedly unpredictable

4/17/2005

Bureaucracy Meets Ignorance

by @ 11:46 am. Filed under Law & Politics

This bit of local news here in Idaho is just a sad story all around:

Hernandez insisted the coke wasn’t his, but signed a plea deal. Hernandez, his lawyer, the prosecutor and 6th District Judge Don Harding agreed he would serve at least one year in prison, but no more than two years.

The critical error occurred after sentencing on June 23, 1998. Because of a mixup with case numbers, Harding also sentenced Hernandez to up to seven years, a term intended for another offender, Alonzo Peery, who also was convicted of cocaine possession.

Bizarrely, both sentences carried the exact date and time stamp from the clerk — June 25, at 9:55 a.m. — with Hernandez assigned both case numbers. The bottom line: Hernandez was sentenced to a maximum seven years for Peery’s crime, and up to two years for his own.

Hernandez said he didn’t think twice when he was told his release date was March 12, 2006. He told me he thought he’d gotten the maximum seven years allowed for his crime.

I’m still baffled Hernandez didn’t understand his sentence. He graduated from Aberdeen High School and was a state boxing champ as a kid. Had he recalled what he signed when he entered his plea, he could have complained to his lawyer, prosecutor or judge and been freed far sooner.

It’s sad but understandable that a bureaucratic mistake got made. What really gets me is that the defendant did not speak up or say anything. He obviously didn’t understand the plea deal he signed; he felt powerless, and simply took what ‘the system’ meted out. The fact that Hernandez was apparently a nonviolent drug offender and needn’t have actually gone to jail at all just compounds the tragedy.

One Response to “Bureaucracy Meets Ignorance”

  1. Don Kosloff Says:

    That is because the crimnal was guilty and he knew it. A professional criminal drug dealer must be an excellant liar to survive in his chosen profession. Thus, they will be quite convincing when they assert that they are innocent.

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