Free Republic

"We've become mad in our pursuit of drug-law violations," he said. "Generations to come will look back and scarcely believe what we've done to sick people."

He call came early in the evening on September 30, 2003. Ashley O'Donoghue, 20, could feel his cell phone vibrating in the holster on his right hip. He flipped open the phone and glanced at the caller ID. "Hey, Peter," he said. "What's going on?" Every time Peter called, Ashley knew he was going to make some money. Ashley didn't know much about Peter, not even his last name. He didn't know that Peter's father is a leader in the drug-abuse treatment field, or that Peter had just graduated from Collegiate, one of Manhattan's most prestigious prep schools. All...

The three branches of government are jockeying to gain control over criminal sentencing should the Supreme Court change or even strike down the current system of federal guidelines. The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Monday in two cases that the Justice Department maintains show that federal sentencing guidelines are constitutional. Enacted in 1987, the guidelines designate factors judges must consider in sentencing defendants. They have served as a model for criminal sentences ever since. The high court threw the sentencing system into turmoil in June. In a case from Washington state, it ruled that any factor that increases...

<p>SUNDAY NIGHT'S "60 Minutes" segment on federal mandatory-minimum drug sentences -- "More Than They Deserve" -- touched on a facet of the federal drug-sentencing system that might surprise many people.</p> <p>No. 1: Laws that were supposed to put away the bad guys for long, hard prison time often are being used to keep low-level offenders behind bars for decades longer than drug kingpins.</p>