Texas Drug Leniency
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:40 AM

The state of Texas is practically begging its residents to take up illicit drugs, given the ridiculously light sentences being dispensed by state court judges. A man was recently convicted of possession of between 4 and 200 grams of a controlled substance. This week, the judge, perhaps being oversensitive to criticism of the frequent use of the death penalty in Texas, decided to let the malefactor live, and furthermore, only sentenced him to 35 years in prison! This felon could be out of jail in 2039, poised to possess again.

A new book, Life on the Outside, by Jennifer Gonnerman, chronicles the life of one woman who spent 16 years in prison for a cocaine sale under New York's insane Rockefeller drug laws. Here's a brief review of the book from the Village Voice, the publication for which the author (Gonnerman) works.

Labels: drugs, sentencing, Texas