I hope he gets his punishment regardless of his status as a basketball player.
You break the law and get caught, then you pay your dues! regardless of who you are.
This is one situation where a Haslem will be treated like everybody else and still get a slap on the wrist, I think.
Roy there are two points I disagree with you on your post.
1) You would have to add the caveat that he will get treated like everyone else with the means to defend themselves. A lot of people whether its because they don't have proper education of the proper representation would end up with a longer sentence. (I could see this point starting a lengthy debate)
2) He won't get treated like everyone else with respect to his job. I don't know what percentage of jobs it actually is, but a very significant amount of people would flat out lose their job if they were caught with 20 grams of pot. A few years ago I worked in email and mobile marketing and my job really wasn't the typical job for being affected by marijuana. I was not operating machinary or responsible for anyone else's physical well being at the job or otherwise. You could even make an argument that pot would have "helped my creativity etc." Nonetheless I had to take a drug test and would have been fired if I was charged with marijuana posession. This was also in a very liberal city San Francisco.
With those two points, I'm not saying the consequences are deserved, but he definitely won't be treated like everyone else.
I do court-appointed criminal defense work, and from what I've seen, the vast majority of drug crimes -- especially related to possession -- result in fines and slaps on the wrist. That includes felony charges. Now, Maine isn't Florida, but I'd be surprised if the Florida prison system was full of people convicted on marijuana possession.
I'd agree in general that the better attorney you have , the better your chances of success (with money going a long way towards securing that better attorney). However, from my experience, the most DA's offices won't even push for felony sentences on possession charges.
In terms of people's employers, that varies, obviously. My conjecture would be that most employers wouldn't care about a possession charge, but I can't really say that for certain.
Roy I did remember that you practiced some Law, so knew I was bringing a slingshot into a gun fight so to speak. However, I still contend that at felony drug charges do have at least a significant chance of getting a sentence handed down. Let me know if your experience would agree or disagree with this article (I was focusing on the possession statistics and disregarding the traffic charges)
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/524483_10
As for the job thing I don't know how I could prove or disprove that point. I think we could agree there are some pretty obvious jobs like being a teacher, firefighter, cop, pilot and a lot of government jobs that would have mandatory dismissal for a felony drug charge. My friend that works in the Navy gets regular random testing and would almost certainly be dismissed with a felony drug charge. Finally, to compound matters, not only would a felony drug charge potentially cost you your current job, it will have severe ramifications on your future employment since every application I have filled out asked about any previous crime charges misdemeanor or above. Writing down felony drug charge would certainly not impress to many people...
The article is interesting, but keep in mind we're talking about people who are actually sentenced for felony possession. As the article points out, the overwhelming majority of people arrested for possession (17 out of 18 arrests) are never sentenced for felony possession.
Again, different jurisdictions handle these things differently, but from my experience, a large majority of felony drug possession charges are plead down to misdemeanors. If, for whatever reason, your charges are so severe that the DA won't accept a plea to a misdemeanor, then the statistics you showed suggest that people could do some serious time.
However, I still stand by my argument that the overwhelming majority of folks charged with possession won't do time in jail. (Running the numbers, 17 out of 18 people arrested for possession avoid a felony. Of those who are convicted of felonies, roughly half do jail time. So, 35 out of every 36 people arrested for marijuana do felony jail time. My guess would be that the majority of those are repeat offenders.
(I'd also be curious to see if the statistics cited about prison sentences include suspended sentences. A lot of times, somebody is given a lengthy sentence, but only does a small fraction of that.
For some perspective: last week I represented a client who was charged with two felonies and three misdemeanors, related to drug charges. She was looking at 10 years. She walked away with a 364 sentence, all but 30 days suspended. That means that, assuming she stays clean while on probation, she'll do less than 30 days in jail [after credit for good behavior]. However, on the books it looks like a 364 day sentence.)
