Vermont county prosecutor takes stand on drug laws

Robert Sand, a state's attorney (akin to a district attorney or prosecutor elsewhere) in Windsor County, Vermont is standing by his decision to send a sixty-one year old attorney found in possession of two and a half pounds of weed to court diversion. The governor, Jim Douglas, is pissed. Douglas has ordered the state police to bypass Sand's office and go to the Vermont Attorney General with significant drug cases arising in Sand's county.

Although I've worked on the defense side of criminal law in the past, I have to say I really agree with what Sand has done here. In Vermont, corrections is the largest department in state government with over 700 state employees. Vermont conservatives (yes, we have those here) bemoan our "generous welfare state." But, then conservatives like Douglas go and try to make examples out of someone like Attorney Sand, sending the message that they want to feed the corrections beast. It defies logic, but that's politics.

As anyone familiar with Vermont can attest, we have a drug problem up here. A lot of those folks whose use and sell end up in jail several times during the course of their lives. Although we can only speculate about the particulars of this case in particular, what Sand decided to do is very common sensical and very practical: he's sending this person to get help and try to figure herself out. He's not sending a sixty-one year-old woman to jail. He's not making her pay huge fines. He's not giving her up to the Feds. He's trying to fix her problem with one of the best tools he has available.

Kind of reminds you of a prosecutors real job: seeking justice.

But, sadly, it doesn't seem like that is what Gov. Douglas has in mind. Why seek justice when you can look good as a "law and order" governor?