#ninetenthsnyc

Asha Bandele and Dr. Carl Hart at "Molly, Meth, Marijuana and Myths: The Drug Conversation We've Been Afraid to Have." Photo: Caroline Anderson

Speaking to a packed classroom on the day of Nelson Mandela’s death, drug reform advocate Asha Bandele compared the United States’ war on drugs to the apartheid Mandela fought against.

“We are dealing with what may be the worst human rights violation in the history of the U.S.,” said Bandele to the crowd of about 50. “More people have been incarcerated since 1976 than in the history of the United States.”

Bandele is the director of the advocacy grants program at the Drug Policy Alliance, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reforming U.S. drug policy.

Wearing a tight dress and hoop earrings, Bandele was speaking at a conversation hosted by the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University Friday.

She interviewed Dr. Carl Hart, a professor of psychology at Columbia and outspoken critic of the war on drugs, for the event called “Molly, Meth, Marijuana and Myths: The Drug Conversation We’ve Been Afraid to Have.”

Sitting on the table between the two was Hart’s new book, High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society.

The memoir chronicles Hart’s journey growing up in a rough Miami neighborhood inundated with drugs to becoming an Ivy League professor.

Hart said he wrote the book because although his textbook Drugs, Society and Human Behavior has become an authoritative resource, “It has not had the impact of changing drug laws, race and society.”

Dr. Carl Hart. Photo: Caroline Anderson

The hour-and-a-half event was punctuated by snaps and affirmations of agreement from the largely black audience, such as when Hart pointed out the hypocrisy he perceived from those who celebrated figures like Mandela but were not tackling the social injustice he believes that drug laws have created.  

When Bandele asked Hart what he thought the world should look like, his message was clear.

“Decriminalize all drugs,” he said. “Getting caught with drugs should be like traffic tickets. You get a warning, maybe a fine. It should not ruin someone’s life by putting them in prison.”

“If the last three presidents had been caught, they wouldn’t be in the White House,” he added, referring to the past drug use of the current president and his predecessors.

Hart said he stopped short of this message in his book because he did not think his audience was ready.

“I didn’t argue for legalization because too many people are too ignorant,” he said.

When an audience member asked how to fight the stereotype of the black man as a drug abuser, Hart praised the example set by the president.

Since the war on drugs began in the United States, there has been a great increase in arrests nationwide; New York is no exception. One of many issues that has arisen in New York, the Bronx in particular, is a backlog of criminal cases, the majority of which are low level misdemeanors. This increase is due in part by policing tactics of the New York Police Department. This critically vast backlog of cases in the Bronx courts involves misdemeanor drug possession, most commonly involving marijuana. We place focus on the Bronx courts because this borough has more pending cases that are two years or older than all other boroughs combined. The New York World reported that there are over 4,000 criminal cases before the Bronx Supreme Court. Five hundred of these cases have been on the docket for two years or more. The courts have become overwhelmed. Out of the five boroughs of NYC, the Bronx receives the fewest dollars. Staffing resources at the courts are low and for years there has been a culture of delay in the Bronx that doesn't exist in the other boroughs.

What is the law?

Speedy Trial Clause

In short, the Speedy Trial Clause is part of the 6th amendment to the United States that grants defendants in criminal prosecutions the right to a speedy and public trial. Barker v. Wingo  (1973), decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, laid down a four-part balancing test for determining whether the defendant’s speedy trial right has been violated. The four factors are a) length of the delay, b) reasons for the delay, c) defendants assertion for the right to a speedy trial and d) prejudice to the defendant. In New York State for class B misdemeanors that include drug possession, the legal time limit for the prosecutor to be ready for trial from the time of arraignment is 60 days.

How is/ isn’t the law manifested in the Bronx Criminal Courts?

In the Bronx, there have been low-level class B misdemeanor drug cases that were supposed to go to trial after 60 days, but have taken more than two years to be litigated. it should be noted that the trial itself is the shortest period of the process. Getting to trial is the greatest cause of delay.

A Brief Overview of the Bronx Process

Following the arraignment of a defendant, the judge will adjourn the case for motion practice. At the next court date, the judge will determine which hearings need to be conducted before trial. In drug possession cases, there is almost always a suppression hearing, where admissibility of physical evidence at trial is determined. In these cases, this consists of whatever drug i.e. marijuana that was recovered. In the next step, the judge sets a date for hearings and trial to begin. In order for a hearing to occur, 1) the prosecutor must be ready to move forward and have its witnesses (generally police) present and available, 2) the defense team must also be prepared, and 3) there must be a judge, courtroom and court staff available to conduct the hearing. It should be noted that scheduling of the first trial date doesn’t guarantee that the trial will actually be held on that date. That scheduling most often marks the beginning on a long and drawn-out process of postponements and delays.

The issue with this delay is that it interrupts the daily lives of those who’ve been charged with low-level misdemeanors. Fighting a case takes away from everyday obligations such as school, work and family. These delays also impose heavy financial burdens that come with paying for legal services. 

The Bronx Defenders is a law firm based in the Bronx, NY that provides legal aid, social work and advocacy to indigent people of the Bronx. The firm was established in 1997 with a mission to change the way low-income people were represented in the criminal justice system. They strive to promote justice in low-income communities by keeping families together. With a staff of 200 individuals, they represent roughly 28,000 people each year.

In 2013, The Bronx Defenders issued a report covering all of the factors that have led to this backlog in the Bronx from the “Bronx culture” to policing tactics and lack of resources. In it you will find anecdotal stories of those affected by the Bronx Criminal Court System.

In 2011, The Bronx Defenders launched the Marijuana Arrest Project (MAP) to focus attention on the NYPD’s practice of “manufacturing misdemeanors.” With pro bono assistance from Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, from September 2011 to February 2012, MAP interviewed and represented over 500 clients who were arrested and charged with marijuana possession in the Bronx. In late March 2012, MAP released data showing that the police had no legal cause for the initial detention and/ or manufactured misdemeanors in over 40% of all the cases that were evaluated. The vast majority of clients plead guilty to a lesser charge at arraignment or the first post-arraignment court appearance rather than undergo a prolonged and often ineffectual court process.

Last January Brooklyn Judge Patricia DiMango was brought into the Bronx  courts o help clear up the problem of the backlog. Her no-nonsense attitude and swift practice helped to clear hundreds of cases from the Bronx criminal court system. DiMango uses tactics that include talking directly to defendants about their options. In nine months on the job, DiMango resolved 600 criminal cases. But some argue, “at what cost?” Some feel she has done a great job at tending to a major hindrance to the court system while others argue that she presses for plea agreements at the expense of many vulnerable New Yorkers. A new report  filed by the Human Rights Watch found that federal prosecutors are routinely threatening severe prison sentences to coerce drug defendants into waiving their right to a trial and plead guilty. What’s going on in the Bronx at the misdemeanor level could be looked at as a microcosm of a larger issue. Below are links to stories from various publications that have shed light on the issue.

Human Rights Watch Report

Bronx Defenders Report

New York Times: “Bronx Courts Trim Backlog, with Outside Judge at the Helm”

New York TImes: “Faltering Courts, Mired in Delays”

The New York World: “Hundreds of Guilty Pleas Later, Fix it Judge Readies to Leave Bronx”

In 1992, there were 812 arrests for possessing a small amount of marijuana in New York City. In 2012, there were 39,230. Marijuana arrests are the most common type of arrest in NYC. 85 percent of those arrested for marijuana possession are black or Latino. In 2010, New York State spent $678 million on marijuana possession enforcement.

While smoking a cigarette off school property in 2011, Alberto Willmore, then a New York City public school teacher, was suddenly approached by a police officer who accused him of smoking a marijuana cigarette. Willmore, beloved by students and facilty members at Ella Baker public school in Manhattan, was arrested and subsequently barred from teaching. This resulted in a chain of demoralizing effects that WIllmore has experienced.

Stories like Willmore’s have become common under the Bloomberg administration as the number of marijuana arrests have heightened over the past 12 years. Today, more people are arrested for possession of marijuana than for any other crime in New York City.

This video tells the story of Alberto Willmore. 

Katrina vanden Heuvel, writing for The Nation points out that the past three presidents have more or less owned up to breaking US drug laws. 

From Bill Clinton’s “I didn’t inhale it” through George W. Bush’s “I was young and foolish” to Barack Obama’s teen years in the Choom Gang (“I inhaled frequently—that was the point”), the last three presidents have more or less owned up to breaking America’s drug laws.

All of them were elected. Then re-elected.

And so if they do, why can't the rest of us? Why should so many people - particularly young, Black and Latino men - be languishing behind bars for doing the same as them? 

She points out that had Obama been less lucky - "one broken taillight on the Choomwagon, one traffic stop by a cop in a bad mood, one unlucky lapse in Hawaii’s famed tolerance" - he could have ended up just another casualty in the war on drugs. 

At a public event hosted in November by advocacy groups pushing to reform drug sentencing and drug laws in New York City, New Yorkers could be heard telling stories about how drugs affect their lives and brainstorming ideas for the de Blasio administration to enact. While the mayor-elect has publicly stated his support for decriminalizing marijuana in certain circumstances, it is unclear what de Blasio could do to change drug sentencing laws in New York City.

The event, hosted by Drug Policy Alliance, a nationwide advocacy group dedicated to drug policy reform, and Vocal New York, a nonprofit organization that also works with citizens affected by drug use, was called “Ending the New Jim Crow: Mapping the Future of Drug Policy in NYC.”

Here are some of the quotes, thoughts and suggestions from the event:

On public health

“We give out clean syringes and then we arrest people for those syringes,” said Jeremy Saunders, a Vocal New York staffer. Saunders said current drug policing methods are hypocritical because the ways in which drug laws are enforced don’t help the people they were written to benefit. “De Blasio should develop a public health approach to drug use.”

Banning the employment “box”

“We want to work with the de Blasio administration,” Saunders said, “[to] remove the barriers” and “ban the box in New York,” referring to boxes on jobs applications that ask about criminal records.

Linking race and policing

“We need to end racist marijuana arrests,” said Kassandra Frederique, a policy coordinator for Drug Policy Alliance. “It’s up to us. That’s what this whole [event] is about.”

For Brooklyn resident Reginald Brown drug sentencing and racial profiling blend together in New York City.

Although he wasn’t arrested for drug possession, Brooklyn resident Reginald Brown said he experienced “racially disproportionate” policing when he was stopped and frisked in the middle of the day two years ago.

Brown, 61, said the first question the two officers asked was: “Where are your drugs?”

On education services

Eric Gottlieb, a drug counselor who works with teenagers in the Bronx, said the “vast majority” of his students have been caught with marijuana, nothing else. He said he wants more resources and funding for drug education and prevention.

“They don’t have the resources [to help themselves],” said Gottlieb, 28, adding that there isn’t enough funding for GED programs in his students’ neighborhoods. “There’s not enough money.”

Now we want to hear from other New Yorkers about their opinions on drug sentencing, policy making and enforcement in the city. What do you want mayor-elect de Blasio to do regarding drug sentencing? Policing? Drug arrests? What would you like to change and what do you want to remain the same?

40 years ago, New York's then governor, Nelson Rockefeller passed strict sentencing guidelines for drug-related offenses. A precedent was set across the US: cracking down on even minor offenses became normal. 

But why were these (now controversial) laws passed in the first place? NPR's Brian Mann offers some insight. 

Rockefeller had initially supported drug rehabilitation and job support programs for drug offenders, taking a social rather than a criminal approach to the drug epidemic. But he was out of step with the times. President Nixon had declared a national war on drugs and panic was spreading across the country about the state of the inner cities. 

Late in 1972, one of Rockefeller's closest aides, Joseph Persico, was in a meeting with the governor. He says Rockefeller suddenly did a dramatic about-face.

"Finally he turned and said, 'For drug pushing, life sentence, no parole, no probation," says Persico.

That was the moment when one of the seeds of the modern prison system was planted. 

Rockefeller decided that the progressive approach simply wasn't going to work. His staff, Mann reports, were shocked at the severity of what he was proposing: mandatory 15 year prison sentences for anyone caught with even a small amount of an illegal substance.