Mandatory Life Term Upheld for Drug Dealer
A federal appeals court in San Francisco on Monday upheld a mandatory life sentence for a 23-year-old South-Central Los Angeles man convicted of possessing 5.5 ounces of crack cocaine with intent to sell it.
Richard V. Winrow was sentenced in December, 1989, under a special federal statute for repeat drug offenders.
When Winrow was found guilty on the crack charges in Los Angeles federal court, it marked his fourth felony drug conviction and made him eligible for the mandatory life term, which precludes the possibility of parole.
The appeals court unanimously rejected the claims of Winrow’s lawyers that the harsh sentence violated the Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
The case had attracted widespread attention because Winrow was the first person in California and the second in the nation to be sentenced under the repeat-offender law and because all his offenses involved small amounts of drugs. Winrow is imprisoned in a federal penitentiary in Arizona.
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