The Sacramento Superior Court who gave a former California prison guard a year in jail for smuggling into the prison cell phones…and drugs, specifically marijuana. He did all this smuggling because prisoners paid him for his trouble.
He also brought a gun, bullets and two knives onto the prison property, but he says he did that last completely by mistake.
The Sacramento Bee reports:
in his guilty plea, Garcia admitted that he supplied marijuana to somebody in prison and conspired to distribute cell phones to convicts. The court papers showed that Garcia had 19 separate written communications with inmates, that he kept pay-owe sheets and that he had nine cell phones at his house when he was arrested.
Corrections officials say they have confiscated thousands of cell phones in recent years from prisoners who use them to commit crimes.
Prisoners and prisoner rights activists say inmates use the phones to cut down on their families’ collect-call bills.
On his third count, Garcia admitted that he brought a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic handgun, 50 rounds of ammunition and two knives onto prison grounds. Deputy District Attorney Steve Secrest said Garcia told investigators the gun was his personal weapon and that he forgot to take it out of his car after he went shooting with it.
Okay, let’s see. According to the state of California’s Health and Safety Code’s sentencing guidelines the penalty for selling any amount of weed—unless you’re a medical marijuana dispensary–is 2 to 4 years in prison.
Garcia, a sworn correctional officer, smuggled weed into a state prison for money—in other words, he sold it.
On top of that, he smuggled contraband cell phones into the same prison, his place of employ (also for money).
He had a bunch of “pay-owe” sheets to keep track of his customers, which suggests that the bout of weed and cell phone deal-making for which Mr. Garcia was caught, was not his first.
For this he gets a year in jail, not prison, which—given Sac’to jail’s recent release policy, likely means he’ll do much less.
According to the prosecutor, Garcia also said the state employee furloughs had hit him hard and that he smuggled items to make some extra cash. Correctional officers have not been furloughed like other state workers, but they have had their pay docked while they “bank” the time for up to two years.
Bummer.
The prosecutor, who is starting to sound like Garcia’s BFF, also said that the corrections officer was “enticed” into bringing in the drugs and the cell phones by one of the prisoners he was supplying.
Right. The old “enticed” by the drug buyers defense.
Look, I don’t wish a longer sentence on Mr. Garcia. Heck, if it were up to me I’d have legalized marijuana years ago. But when I contrast Garcia’s treatment to that of, say, Skid row drug addicts who may get serious prison time when caught selling a rock to support their habits, or ex-gang members with one non-violent conviction in their past who on one stupid and desperate day steal $30 worth of merchandise from Target and go upstate for a year or two as a result….it doesn’t seem like equal justice.
Meanwhile, in case in Texas last month, a man was sentenced to 35 years in prison for possession of 4.6 oz of marijuana.
The gang members who this officer procured for thank the DA’s office for their leniency. Heck, the Mexican Mafia controlling all Latino gangs in LA? Maybe it’s just the prison guards and the DA’s office they control.
Celeste, in your experience with gang members and copping pleas, do you think these people usually get a sentencing break by taking a plea or do they get the full exposure (number of years they could be sentenced) their crime would actually carry?
A person with no criminal history, such as Garcia, when pleading out will almost always get a lesser sentence than someone that fights a case and has a criminal history as well. Teachers who molest students, doctors who molest patients, nursing home attendants who abuse those in their care get the max sentence if they have no history of criminal conduct and plead out? Of course they don’t.
Sentencing guidelines are just that, guidelines. Mandatory sentencing is a different animal and I’ve seen gangsters and others get breaks that they never should have from soft on crime judges or sometimes based on an idiot D.A.’s recommendations that were crazy. In one of my shootings the suspect, who shot at me and my partner, received no jail time. He had one minor crime on his record from years back and had mental health issues, but no time after pleading out to ADW on a police officer?
Why does your ex-gang member with one non-violent conviction in their past who on “one stupid and desperate day steal $30 worth of merchandise from Target”, get support from you? Do you really think it was his only “desperate day” Celeste, cause I’d bet it was the only one you knew about, not the first time he got “desperate”.
Yet your take on the excuse of Garcia garners no such support…
According to the prosecutor, Garcia also said the state employee furloughs had hit him hard and that he smuggled items to make some extra cash. Correctional officers have not been furloughed like other state workers, but they have had their pay docked while they “bank†the time for up to two years.
Bummer.
The real “bummer” in my opinion, is how you presented your case. Liberal thought, certain members of society deserve our sympathy, others simply don’t.
Sure Fire, well said. Maybe the gangsters who hired this prison guard might have some work for you, too. That comment is just the resume` they’re looking for.
This is the common Rob Thomas type response that show’s the weakness of liberal thought when presented with the common sense take of a conservative.
On this blog it seems to me that “social justice” is reserved for those who are only on the left or a victim of some conservative type conduct, never the opposite.
I’d like to see sentencing enhancements for the type of people I mentioned above, including cops and prison guards if it’s a true crime that falls under the color of authority type tent.
That would go for the clergy as well.
Sure Fire, YOU are on the left! Your defense of that thug cop who did work for gangsters is something only Tom Hayden could have written up. It was well done. Good stuff. My Berkeley pals would have applauded you.