Crack Cocaine Trafficking

If there were in existence a Hall of Injustice or a Hall of Infamous Decisions, Judge David W. Williams’ sentencing of Winrow to life imprisonment without parole for possessing 5.5 ounces of crack cocaine would deserve to be enshrined there.

The harshness of that decision illustrates what so many of us know from bitter experience--that black people in this country are routinely denied equal protection and fundamental fairness, which are fundamental rights under the U.S. Constitution. It is this kind of denial which has overloaded our prison system to the breaking point. This kind of denial is the principal reason that blacks, though comprising only one-eighth of this country’s population, constitute nearly one-half of all prisoners.

Judge Williams’ rationalization of his harsh sentence being required by the fact that “Congress has gone out to battle the drug war and this man is one of the enemies” is unconvincing. If this is war, and Winrow is an enemy soldier he is still entitled to humane treatment.

It is apparent that Judge Williams was troubled by this whole affair, indicated by his linking his own blackness to Winrow’s. But Judge Williams’ identity linkage to Winrow is a flawed one. Although both of them faced endemic racial segregation and discrimination, there are important differences. The poverty, unemployment, violence, drugs, and poor and irrelevant education which continually confront today’s young blacks are far more virulent, relatively, than these conditions were in 1932, when Judge Williams was 22.

When I first met Judge Williams more than 35 years ago, I found him to be a gracious, generous and elegant human being. I admired his sense of justice and fair play when, as one of the first--if not the first--black judges to sit in Pasadena, he dismissed a gambling charge against some black defendants, on the grounds that whites were never prosecuted for the same offense. Thus, I personally regret writing this critical letter.

A miscarriage of justice of this magnitude endangers the life and health, not only of the black community, but that of all America.

SAMUEL C. SHEATS

Altadena