Over the course of four episodes, Crime and Punishment examines the history of the laws of England, which is also, in large part, a history of our laws. I watched the third last night which chronicled, among other things, the execution of Charles I, the Glorious Revolution, and the English Bill of Rights, all of which helped cut the monarchy down to size and establish the notion that no one is above the law, not even the king.
How ironic then for me to read that blogger/political commentator Andrew Sullivan is above the law. Well, at least laws about possession of controlled substances.
While marijuana possession may have been decriminalized, Sullivan, who owns a home in Provincetown, made the mistake of being caught by a park ranger with a controlled substance on National Park Service lands, a federal misdemeanor.
The ranger issued Sullivan a citation, which required him either to appear in U.S. District Court or, in essence, pay a $125 fine.
But the U.S. Attorney’s Office sought to dismiss the case. Both the federal prosecutor and Sullivan’s attorney said it would have resulted in an “adverse effect” on an unspecified “immigration status” that Sullivan, a British citizen, is applying for.
How nice such a privilege would be to the 750,000+ people who were arrested last year for possession of dope. Presumably a rather large number of those folks were, unlike Sullivan, American citizens. But because they were not famous bloggers at The Atlantic, their government took a slightly less charitable view of their actions.
This situation made Judge Robert B. Collings highly unamused. He pointed out the inherent in equality of the situation.
Collings says he expressed his concern that “a dismissal would result in persons in similar situations being treated unequally before the law. … persons charged with the same offense on the Cape Cod National Seashore were routinely given violation notices, and if they did not agree to [pay the fine] were prosecuted by the United States Attorney … there was no apparent reason for treating Mr. Sullivan differently from other persons charged with the same offense.”
In fact, noted Collings, there were several other defendants appearing in court the same day who were charged with the same offense.
In his opinion, Collings wrote that the U.S. Attorney is “is not being faithful to a cardinal principle of our legal system, i.e., that all persons stand equal before the law and are to be treated equally in a court of justice once judicial processes are invoked. It is quite apparent that Mr. Sullivan is being treated differently from others who have been charged with the same crime in similar circumstances.”
I guess some people are just more equal than others.
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