Letters

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal
• Citation: Vol. 10 No. 9 Pg. 4
• Pages: 4
• Publication year: 1997

Letters Vol. 10 No. 9 Pg. 4 Utah Bar Journal November, 1997

Editor:

I appreciated your September issue highlighting the Crime Summit. However, several aspects of Judge Hutchings' and Professor Smith's article ("The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Crime and Punishment in Utah") need correction.

• Under the heading "Illegal Alien Drug Dealers," they write that "[a]ll illegal aliens who commit drug felonies can be subject to federal prosecution, with stiff minimum mandatory punishment imposed." In fact, the overwhelming majority of felony drug arrests do not involve amounts of drugs that would make a defendant eligible for a federal minimum mandatory sentence.

• The authors then write, "However, the policy of the U.S. Attorney's Office is to decline prosecutions on all but a handful of these offenders." In fact, when a drug defendant is eligible for a minimum mandatory sentence and the evidence presents a prosecutable case, the U.S. Attorney's Office rarely if ever declines such a case.

• Next, the authors assert that "[i]n 1996, the U.S. Attorney prosecuted less than 5% of the illegal aliens booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for drug distribution." This compares apples and oranges. The authors cite to information from my office having nothing to do with prosecutions for drug distribution; that information reported aggravated illegal re-entry immigration cases and showed that such federal prosecutions in Utah have increased significantly in recent years. Indeed, as reported at the Crime Summit, more of these cases are being charged in Utah than in Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado combined.

• The authors did not ask my office about federal drug prosecutions. Rather, one of Judge Hutchings' law clerks asked about immigration law and aggravated illegal re-entry prosecutions. As is the case throughout the United States, most drug offenses are prosecuted in state rather than federal court because they often involve small amounts of narcotics. Federal resources are appropriately focused on the large amount, complex drug cases that produce "stiff minimum mandatory punishment."

For example my office recently prosecuted an international drug smuggler for the importation of thousands of pounds of marijuana to the United States. He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. This complex investigation and prosecution also produced about $1.5 million in forfeited assets connected to the illegal drug activity.

Finally, I would like to comment on...