Access to The Champion archive is one of many exclusive member benefits. It’s normally restricted to just NACDL members. However, this content, and others like it, is available to everyone in order to educate the public on why criminal justice reform is a necessity.
“That's where John Robinette lives,” I told my wife as we were driving past the federal penitentiary north of Phoenix on the way to the Grand Canyon.
“Is he still in?” she asked. “That case was before David was born,” she added, referring to our 9-year-old in the back seat playing Pokemon on his Gameboy.
“His sentence is death in prison,” I answered, thinking about the life sentence he received after a Waco federal jury convicted him of being the kingpin in a 1989 meth lab conspiracy - his first offense.
“Anyway,” she mused, “I thought he'd be out by now.”
“So did the jury, I expect.” The conversation moved on to the Indian cliff dwellings.
Actually, I never represented John Robinette. I interviewed for the case, but by the time he was busted, whatever resources he had from water well drilling had been smoked or snorted or spent on the Austin lifestyle of the 1980s. It was a time when undercover cops, prosecutors, dope dealers and defense lawyers often knew each other and openly bantered at the bars on Sixth Street. John figured that if he got caught, he'd get 10 years and parole out in a third of that. All that talk about doing big time in federal prison was lawyers setting the hook for a big fee. So he thought.
The Plan
John's plan was to make methamphetamine in hot water heaters. The potential quantity was staggering. So was the odor. John's “friends” turned on him, gave “substantial assistance” and most have gotten out by now. I'm told that if John had something to give the prosecution team, he could have gotten a plea bargain instead of a life sentence. Like many, he had no defense and nothing to trade.
John could have made something of himself — had a business, started a family, paid taxes, cared for his parents in their old age. Instead, I imagine him padding through the dull, repetitive routine of the USP in a tan uniform, eating institutional food, subject to mandatory “counts” several times a day, and costing the taxpayers $40,000 a year. What a waste.
A Victim
John is a victim of one of the rules of large numbers: If a large number of people are involved in something that is very, very illegal, some of them are going to get hurt.
Well — NACDL members — we are in the business of saving people when we can. We could make more money another way. What really gets us going, with pride, chests stuck out, smile on the face, twinkle in the eye, is cutting someone loose from the system — offering them another chance. We reject the false promise that incarcerating more and more people will make America a better place to live.
No More War
On November 4, 2000, your NACDL Officers and Directors adopted the proposition that the so-called “War on Drugs” should be ended. Like Prohibition, we can call it, at best, a “noble experiment that failed.” Like Vietnam, it's time to declare victory and go home. This is a national public health problem, and making war on our own people is not the answer.
John Robinette is in his mid-40s now and slowing down a bit. If nothing changes, they will keep him in prison until he dies of old age, or worse. As we get older — as the growing prison population, living with little or no hope, gets older, too — we respect our eventual mortality. We think of all the things that might have been, and what we said or did when bad things were happening around us. It's sad that there are so many John Robinettes.
Of course, NACDL's opposition to the drug war will change nothing immediately. But, at least, we have added our voices to the chorus. We have taken the less popular side of what is, at its core, a significant moral issue.
“What did you do in the war, Mommy and Daddy?”
“We were against it,” we will say.
I think I'll write John a letter. Maybe there's someone — a prisoner, a former client, a friend — you should write as well. Let someone know you believe he or she shouldn't be locked up still.
For us, it's the holidays.
Best Wishes.
