Justice is swift and certain — in the street

What can criminal justice practitioners learn from the culture of urban drug violence? Street justice is swift and certain.

Much has been written about onerous drug laws that fill prisons with drug offenders. Laws have been enacted that enhance penalties for selling drugs near a school, increase penalties for carrying a gun while possessing illegal drugs and impose harsh mandatory sentences for multiple drug offenders.

However, drug consumers fear drug dealers more than they fear the police, prosecutors, or judges for that matter. According to the Office of Drug Control Policy more than one in four prisoners who were incarcerated for robbery committed their offense in order to get money to buy drugs. In fact, nearly 20 percent of all state prisoners reported committing their offense to get drug money.

It’s safer to rob you

Innocent law abiding citizens are regularly victimized because drug dealers demand and expect cash on the barrel-head before they deliver. Why commit a crime to get money to make an illegal transaction? Why not just rob the drug dealer? This is not to suggest that drug dealers are not robbed. They are regularly victims of violent robberies. But according to Bruce A. Jacobs in “Robbing Drug Dealers: Violence Beyond the Law,” it is rarely by a user who needs a fix.

To understand this phenomenon it is appropriate to compare the court system to the culture of the street. A drug user who commits a crime to get money for dugs can post bond and be back on the street within hours. The accused is afforded constitutional protections against illegal searches and self incrimination. If the system works at optimum efficiency, an accused might be tried before a jury in about a year after being arrested. More likely, the charges will be plea bargained based solely on the discretion of the prosecutor. A plea negotiated without formal rules or court-adopted parameters. The criminal justice system is neither swift nor certain.

On the street, drug dealers hunt down those who rip them off. They don’t knock and announce when they come to the door, they don’t give their quarry a chance to call a lawyer, post bond or convene a jury of their peers. Unlike the courtroom, retribution on the street is swift and certain.

It’s not a model

This is not to suggest that society should condone violent criminal activity toward drug dealers. Nor should the criminal justice system adopt a lawless lynch mob mentality toward criminal activity.

However, society would do well to appreciate that swift and certain justice is a deterrent to crime. The criminal justice system is in need of streamlining. The wheels of justice turn too slowly. Cases need to be adjudicated in a more timely manner. In Pennsylvania, by rule, an accused must be brought to trial within 365 days of his arrest. This process can be unduly extended by defense-requested postponements and even by legitimate pre-trial issues raised by an accused. A case can languish for years through the efforts of a cunning defense attorney. As the wheels of justice are slowed, the deterrent effect of punishment disappears.

Establish guidelines

The certainty of punishment is also compromised in a system that permits unfettered bargaining between prosecutors and defense attorneys. Plea bargaining is a proper and necessary component of the criminal court system. However, there should be a set of guidelines that prosecutors follow in making plea decisions. Just as judges in most states are governed by a set of sentencing guidelines, prosecutors could add a measure of certainty and transparency to the process by utilizing a uniform set of guidelines for purposes of plea bargaining. No such system exists in American jurisprudence.

Swift and certain justice does not mean trampling constitutional rights or warehousing offenders in an ever growing prison system. Deterrence is a legitimate goal of the criminal justice system; it can be achieved by decreasing the time between arrest and conviction as well as meting out punishment in a fair, transparent and certain manner.

X Matthew T. Mangino is the former district attorney of Lawrence County, Pa., and a featured columnist for the Pennsylvania Law Weekly. He can be reached at matthewmangino@aol.com.