True Vermont

A couple of weeks ago law enforcement responded to recent drug-related violence by rounding up over three dozen people in the Rutland region. Newspaper accounts have some prosecuted by state or local authorities, and others by the federal government, but no explanation has been given as to why all were not prosecuted by the same entity.  Simple possession of a regulated drug is sufficient for a federal prosecution without the need to prove any nexus to interstate commerce.

Conventional wisdom had it that federal prosecutions were used in cases where the evidence was weak, in that a criminal defendant has far fewer rights in federal than in most state courts, or in cases where the longer federal sentences could be used to either make an example or coerce “cooperation”.  However, the distinctions are blurring.  Gov. Douglas was crowing about Vermont’s recently-enacted drug law providing for 30-year sentences for drug trafficking; and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that even though an arrest is illegal under state law, a search pursuant to that arrest is legal, and the fruits of the search can be used in a criminal prosecution.