Convicted of first-degree drug possession and sales, Earnest Earl Boyd faced more than 10 years in prison when he walked into a Hennepin County courtroom. He got less than a year in the workhouse.
That same day — Jan. 5, 2012 — judges elsewhere in the state did not show the same leniency to 13 other people convicted of lesser drug crimes. One of them, Christina Wevley, was sentenced in Olmsted County to nearly three years in prison for possessing about $260 worth of cocaine.
State judges are routinely rejecting guidelines that are supposed to make drug sentencing uniform and equitable statewide, according to a Star Tribune analysis of more than 21,000 drug convictions in Minnesota from 2007 to 2012. The difference between getting prison or probation for the same drug crime often comes down to which county offenders live in, or which judge does the sentencing.
In the 8th Judicial District in western Minnesota, offenders convicted of the most serious drug crimes face a 77 percent chance of getting the full prison sentence. In Hennepin County, only 27 percent get the toughest penalty, according to the Star Tribune analysis.
Judges who frequently depart from the recommended prison sentences say those guidelines often punish low-level drug offenders too severely, filling up state prisons with addicts who would be better off receiving treatment.
"The guidelines were often disproportionate to the harm being caused to the community by the offense," said Judge H. Peter Albrecht, who retired from the Hennepin district in 2009 but still presides over cases statewide. Albrecht has one of the highest "departure" rates in the state. "To strictly follow the guidelines without considering other factors is to put our humanity aside."
Albrecht and others advocate for changes in the recommended drug sentences, which they say are among some of the toughest in the nation and make no distinction between high-level dealers and addicts. The lowest state sentence for being caught selling 10 grams of cocaine — about three sugar packets — is the same as for selling an unlimited amount.
Some judges have never gone below the state's recommended sentences, while others have done it in at least half their cases, the Star Tribune analysis shows. Judge Robert Tiffany, who serves in Hubbard County in northern Minnesota, deviated only twice from the recommended sentence in the 64 drug cases he has handled from 2007 through 2012, and that was to give stiffer punishments.