Another Way To Save Money: REFORM THE DRUG LAWS
Did anybody see yesterday’s news about the drug informer who lied to the cops for years:
For seven years, Martinez has worked as one of the city’s most productive police informants, bringing down more than 200 drug and gun dealers.
But Martinez now says that some of the police jobs were tainted, rooted in lies and motivated by power, greed and money. He says he admitted fabricating evidence to the FBI, the police Internal Affairs Bureau and the Police Advisory Commission. Martinez’s admission could reopen and potentially overturn hundreds of cases, legal experts say.
Martinez, 47, claims that he and Officer Jeffrey Cujdik, a narcotics cop, lied about evidence in at least two dozen cases to gain illegal entry into homes and make arrests, for which Martinez got paid. Martinez says he did it for money, to bring down drug dealers, and because he and Cujdik were tight.
God only knows how many people he sent to jail. Say, how much does that cost anyway?
That increase in costs has meant that the prison system’s general fund cost per inmate has grown. In FY97, the cost per inmate was about $20,600 per year. In FY07 the cost per inmate is projected to be over $23,300 per year, a 13 percent increase.
- The growth in general fund healthcare costs is a combination of the increase in the cost per inmate and in the number of inmates, with the growth in the cost per inmate being a far bigger factor. Since FY97, the cost for healthcare has grown almost 190 percent while the average inmate population has grown just over 55 percent.
To put it in perspective, for FY08, the city budgeted $219 million for prison costs. For that same year, according to the mayor’s budget brief, the combined budgets of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Fairmount Park Commission, the Sanitation Division, the Streets Department and the city’s contribution to the School District comes to $218 million. If revenues don’t grow quickly, any increase in costs for prisons is going to have to come out the budgets for those other departments. And we haven’t even got into pension and healthcare costs for current and retired city employees.
Today, the daily News does a little follow up, and points out how many cases are at risk:
Philadelphia’s public defenders yesterday began to scrutinize scores of drug cases in response to a Daily News investigation into allegations that a veteran narcotics cop and his informant fabricated evidence so that police could obtain warrants to enter homes and make arrests.
Dozens of criminal cases are at stake. Those pending could be dismissed, while closed cases could be overturned, legal experts say.
“It seems that dozens of people are improperly sitting in jail, based on fraudulent police testimony and false search warrants,” said Bradley S. Bridge, an attorney with the Defender Association of Philadelphia. “Those cases need to be reopened immediately.”
[snip]
Defense attorney Troy Wilson said that Martinez’s claims, if proved in criminal court, could spark a more far-reaching probe.“The argument could be made that if Cujdik and Martinez conspired to lie, then there is nothing to say that Cujdik and some other [confidential informant] didn’t conspire to do the same thing,” said Wilson, former chair of the criminal-justice section of the Philadelphia Bar Association.
“It could open up a whole nasty can of worms,” Wilson said.
“Whole nasty can of worms” is another word for massive, costly lawsuits.
Meanwhile, en Mexico viejo, the government is facing a potentially “rapid and sudden collapse” due to the powerful drug cartels, which coincidentally provide the US with the majority of imported pot. But it gets even better: the cartels are bringing in more than $8 billion from marijuana revenue, and have avoided US customs by setting up shop in the United States:
Mexican DTOs are expanding their domestic cannabis cultivation operations: Mexican DTOs have long been significant marijuana producers in the United States, operating large-scale outdoor cultivation operations primarily on federal lands in the western United States. However, law enforcement reporting indicates that some of these groups are expanding typical grow areas in California to new areas, primarily in the Pacific Northwest, to avoid aerial detection and increasing law enforcement pressure in California. Albeit to a much lesser extent than expansion into the Pacific Northwest, Mexican cannabis growers operating in California are also increasingly linked to Mexican cannabis growers east of the Mississippi River operating large-scale cannabis grows. Many of these groups maintain their affiliation with the larger groups in California and Mexico and maintain some level of coordination and cooperation among their various operating areas, moving labor and materials to the various sites–even across the country–as needed.
It’s clear that the feds should legalize weed, tax and regulate it like alcohol and tobacco. But here in Philly, if Michael Nutter was really as smart as he thinks he is, he’d make marijuana prosecution an even lower priority than jaywalking, but at the same time aggressively target Philly’s smokers with fines and tickets. This would not only free up prison space for actual criminals who hurt people, it would actually allow productive people who enjoy a little puff after work to continue to contribute to society, including revenue. It goes without saying that legalizing the stuff opens up a whole new source of revenue, one that a lot of people would be happy to participate in.
But we live in a stupid country, in a stupid state, in a city with the unofficial motto “it’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity.” So instead of looking for ways to pay for our services, the mayor only looks for programs to cut.
Philadelphia will be left with all the charms and amenities of new haven, without the pizza. I moved out of New Haven because I couldn’t live in the crime, violence, and filth any longer. I’ll bet a lot of people are wondering if they want to stay in Michael Nutter’s vision of “the next great city”, which apparently has plenty of money for slots parlors and developers, and not too much for actual residents.
