Summing Up Justice in a Single Sentence of Atypical Dealer

She’s married and the mother of two. She’s white. She’s attractive. She dresses well. She lives in a million-dollar home in Newport Beach. She’s known for her charity work, most for children’s causes.

Pretty impressive package, with one exception: the lady also sold cocaine to an undercover cop.

When Tina Schafnitz got sentenced this week to 10 months in jail for selling coke and having a loaded gun in her car, questions arose.

Why 10 months when the district attorney’s office asked for more than 9 1/2 years in state prison? Was it because the 38-year-old socialite doesn’t conform to an “America’s Most Wanted” profile? Aren’t prisons full of male, nonwhite cocaine sellers who got tripped up by a narc on their first offense?

The answer to the last question, according to defense attorneys I talked to, is no. While prisons are heavily populated by drug offenders, most aren’t first-timers.

So, dismissing the notion that Schafnitz got special treatment, let’s ask this question: Was the sentence too harsh?

Personally, I don’t feel threatened by Tina Schafnitz. Since taxpayers foot the bills for its criminals, what are we getting for our money by jailing her? Are we plugging the cocaine supply in Orange County?

The answers to those questions lie, obviously, in how we view the proverbial war on drugs. Plenty of analyses indicate the war isn’t going anywhere, but no one in authority seems willing to end it. A spokesman for a national drug organization in Washington that generally supports decriminalization told me this week that the movement has little momentum. The spokesman had heard of the Schafnitz case, and while he surmised “she is getting special treatment,” he added, “I don’t think her [sentence] should be seen as special. I’d rather this be the rule rather than the exception.”

I’m a career waffler on the issue, having argued in the past only for reasoned public debate. That debate is hard to get when the D.A.’s office asks for nine years for someone like Schafnitz. Deputy district attorney Joseph Nedza, who handled the Schafnitz case, is known as a thoughtful and reasonable prosecutor, but I have a hard time believing he really wanted Schafnitz to spend several years in prison.

“My feeling,” Nedza told me, “is that any time you’re dealing with narcotics for sale and you’ve got a loaded handgun, the potential for danger is so severe that those individuals have to be dealt with, whether they have a prior record or not.” The 16 grams that Schafnitz wanted to sell could have been broken down into as many as 160 separate street transactions, Nedza said.

Still, I asked Nedza if he’d lose sleep over Schafnitz going to prison for several years.

“I wouldn’t have lost sleep if any person who sells dope and has a loaded gun goes to state prison,” he said.

Nine years was too much for Schafnitz. No question. But what about 10 months? Wouldn’t community service for a nonviolent drug charge both punish Schafnitz and benefit society?

I expected a sympathetic ear from her attorney, Robert Newman. “Anyone with similar facts to Tina’s case is clearly not a threat to society,” he said. “If this were someone who was out there selling day in and day out and eking out a living selling drugs, that is different than her case.”

Schafnitz sold the cocaine only after she was directed to the “customer” by another acquaintance, Newman said, trying to make the point with me that she wasn’t selling willy-nilly to strangers.

Just when I thought I knew where Newman was headed, he surprised me.

“I think her sentence is exactly what it should be,” he said.

Saying he wanted to couch his remarks in generic terms about cases with facts similar to Schafnitz’s, Newman said, “In my opinion, which I think many defense attorneys would not agree with, I believe that there is some value in a period of incarceration. To say otherwise is to some degree to ratify that behavior or condone it. That sends the wrong message. . . . “

“What this case shows is that drug problems can happen to anyone,” Newman said. “This is a woman who didn’t want for material things, who many people would be more than happy to trade places with in a heartbeat, and yet it wasn’t somehow enough. . . . This was her wake-up call--this is her chance to turn everything around. . . . Next time it will be prison.”

I like the way Newman didn’t state the obvious by screaming bloody murder over his client’s jail term.

No, Schafnitz didn’t get special treatment, but she needs special treatment.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com