Drug war? Or War on the Bill of Rights?

By David Correa, Prisoner of the Drug War

As many of us are well aware, much has been written about the failures and abuses of the War on Drugs, how it has failed to curtail drugs from coming into the country, or to curb drug use by the American public. We are further aware of how the government, in its doomed attempt to end the drug trade in America, has seriously eroded the civil liberties of every American Citizen. The exception being the government and its members.

Constitutional protection against search and seizure have been all but eliminated. The right of the accused to be released on bond pending the outcome of a trial is non-existent, especially for those people who are accused of a drug crime. There is a "drug exception" to the entire Bill of Rights.

People accused of drug crimes are taking their case to trial at increasingly smaller number these days. Not because they are guilty, but because the 1987 crime bill shifted the balance of power so far in government favor, that the United States Attorney has become the most powerful and important person in any criminal proceeding.

The Sentencing Guidelines, along with relaxed rules of evidence compels the judge to impose a sentence based on little more than allegations. This forces the defendant, (who is often being held virtually incommunicado in a filthy, violent jail, reduced to a state of impoverishment by procedureless seizures of his or her assets, thereby unable to retain adequate counsel), to negotiate with the federal prosecutor to control when he or she might be released from prison"this life or the next. Federal Judges no longer are in control of sentencing!

There are times when the prosecutor, even with all his advantages, does not have "enough" to guarantee a conviction. This is when unscrupulous, over zealous agents and prosecutors, incited by decades of harsh rhetoric, and media-hype, are convinced that they are under no obligation to obey the law while enforcing them. This is where the agents of the government resort to "ENTRAPMENT."

One attorney and professor of law, Mr. Alan Dershowitz, has come to call the government's tactics "TESTI-LYING." Federal agents, as well as state police, have gone as far as planting, altering and fabricating evidence to "frame" its pray. My case was no exception. The evidence that would have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was innocent of the charge for the arrest, was destroyed. When my attorney asked the veteran FBI agents what happened to the evidence, the responses were; "We did not know it had any evidentiary value," or "We had no room in our safe to store it," and my favorite, "I don't know what happened to it."

That particular evidence could have made the difference between my freedom or life in prison! You figure it out, because I am still in a state of shock and I've been incarcerated since 1989!

I can see there is no justice in our court system today. Prosecutors control the time we get and if you are charged with a crime and want to defend yourself at trial, you are almost guaranteed to do some "time," especially if you have nothing to offer the prosecutor.

Today, in America we have numerous laws, but no justice! The lawmakers have forgotten what this country is supposed to be all about-FREEDOM! And now it seems that the whole government has gone out of control.

Only the "People" of America, by becoming aware of its oppressive and tyrannical government, can correct the wrong of this drug war. Set all nonviolent political prisoners of the drug war free today, so that they may become useful citizens once again and be reunited with their families.