Judge Refuses to Reconsider Light Penalty : Courts: Jurist who says sentencing rules are too rigid gave a reformed drug dealer only half the term prosecutors agreed to in a plea bargain. His actions may lead to a confrontation with federal officials.

Escalating his campaign against federal sentencing laws, U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. on Monday refused a request to reconsider the 4 1/2-year prison term he gave to a onetime narcotics dealer who has become a community activist in Pacoima.

The U.S. attorney’s office had asked Hatter to review the sentence because it was half the time defendant Bobbie Marshall had agreed to serve in a plea bargain.

Hatter’s refusal, inviting a confrontation with the executive branch of government, is one of several instances in which he has challenged federal sentencing laws, which he considers too rigid. He told Atty. Gen. Janet Reno in a public forum last year that young, white federal prosecutors were making their reputations on the backs of minority defendants, comments that angered many federal prosecutors.

When Hatter sentenced Marshall earlier this month, the judge said he thought even 4 1/2 years was too severe under the circumstances.

Hatter praised Marshall, 41, for turning his life around during the past four years and emerging as an anti-drug, anti-violence advocate who played a key role in the city’s efforts to maintain calm after verdicts in the second Rodney G. King beating trial and the Reginald O. Denny beating trial.

“You have done wonders in the community,” Hatter said, crediting Marshall with helping young men from minority groups avoid the “spiral of crime in which you found yourself.”

He lamented that “justice can’t be completely done” because politicians have restricted the power of judges to act independently.

Hatter was referring to the fact that federal sentencing laws passed in the 1980s restricted the discretion of judges to tailor sentences to fit individual circumstances. Congress enacted the laws after expressing concern that there was too much inconsistency in sentences given to individuals who had committed similar crimes.

At the March 7 sentencing hearing, Hatter also took the rare step of expressing the hope that the government would not appeal the sentence.

On Monday, Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven G. Madison, treading as lightly as he could, told Hatter that the government respectfully disagreed with his decision.

Madison said that Hatter was obliged, under a federal appeals court ruling, to impose the “agreed upon nine-year sentence,” which was part of a plea agreement that included the dropping of four other 1989 drug charges. Otherwise, Madison contended, the entire agreement should be voided and Marshall should go to trial, where he would face a possible sentence of 24 years or more.

But Hatter would not budge, saying such an action would be unfair to Marshall. “It’s the court, if anyone, who is outside the law, not the defendant,” Hatter said. He also formally dismissed the four remaining charges.

Hatter told Madison that if the government wants to challenge his decision, the appropriate action for the U.S. attorney’s office is to follow its normal procedure and ask the U.S. solicitor general for permission to file an appeal.

“Then we’ll see whether this Justice Department is (as rigid) as the one we had the last 12 years” under Presidents Reagan and Bush, Hatter said.

Madison said the government’s decision to hold fast for the nine-year term had been made after he consulted with U.S. Atty. Nora Manella and Richard Drooyan, the chief of the office’s criminal division.

The prosecutor said he would consult with them again on whether to appeal Hatter’s decision.

“The U.S. attorney’s office took a close look at this case,” Manella said. “We worked out an agreement that was suitable to both sides and faithful to the sentencing guidelines. We will have to look at this (Hatter’s decision) and see what our alternatives are.”

Manella and Madison noted that this is an unusual case. Marshall was arrested in May, 1989, and charged with dealing drugs near a Pacoima schoolyard under a special federal statute that mandates stiff prison terms for such crimes. Marshall had three state convictions between 1977 and 1987 for selling marijuana and for possessing PCP and crack cocaine for sale.

A few months later, Marshall, who is African American, and several other defendants filed papers alleging that the U.S. attorney’s office was selectively prosecuting blacks and Latinos under the schoolyard law. Two years later, Marshall and three other minority defendants pleaded guilty on the eve of a hearing at which a bevy of local and federal law enforcement officials, including Robert C. Bonner Jr., then chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration, were scheduled to testify on the allegations of selective prosecution.

Marshall, who had been out on bail since March, 1990, received a 14-year term. By that time, he was involved in community service work and consistently tested drug-free. Hatter postponed his sentencing for months.

Last July, Marshall’s defense lawyer, Denise Meyer, sent a letter to Reno urging her to reconsider the 14-year sentence, praising Marshall as a “model of rehabilitation and leadership that the criminal justice system rarely sees and should reward.” Attached to Meyer’s letter were other letters of praise from community leaders, including one from Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City).

The U.S. attorney’s office and Meyer renegotiated Marshall’s plea arrangement and on the morning of March 7 agreed to a nine-year term, setting the stage for Hatter’s decision to hand down a more lenient sentence.

“We’re very happy that the judge recognized he has the power to sentence and not the prosecutor,” Meyer said after Monday’s hearing. “Even though it was a binding plea agreement, it doesn’t mean that the judge doesn’t retain jurisdiction to decide on a fair and just sentence.”

Hatter’s decision in the Marshall case is not the first time he has imposed a sentence lighter than prosecutors sought. But he also has meted out severe sentences in narcotics cases.

In 1991, he sentenced two men to life terms, without possibility of parole, after they were convicted of being the leaders of a ring that was broken with the seizure of a record 21.4 tons of cocaine in a Sylmar warehouse. “This is a case that cries out for the maximum sentence,” Hatter said. “Society must be protected as best it can.”