Resigning Judge Trims Sentence

An outgoing federal judge has changed his mind and cut slightly the sentence of a convicted marijuana smuggler who pleaded for leniency during the judge’s final days on the federal bench.

In one of his final judicial acts, U.S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving reduced the 40-year sentence he originally had handed Donanciano Hernandez-Escarsega to 35 years. Hernandez was convicted in 1986 of a conspiracy to smuggle nearly 4 tons of marijuana from Mexico to the United States.

Hernandez’s attorney was one of perhaps a dozen lawyers who asked Irving last month to reduce the sentences the judge had imposed over his eight years on the federal bench. A little-known federal rule allows only the judge who made the original sentence to order a cut.

Irving resigned Dec. 31, the first federal judge in the nation to resign because of frustration over rigid new federal sentencing guidelines.

In a Dec. 28 decision, Irving denied Hernandez’s request, according to the judge’s law clerk. Lawyer Mark O. Heaney had asked Irving at a Dec. 17 hearing to cut the 40-year term to 20 years.

But, according to court papers made available for the first time Thursday, Irving, in a decision formally entered in court rolls Jan. 3, changed his mind and granted a five-year reduction.

The documents revealed no reason for the reduction.