The guy was 27 years old, with no prior record. He'd been paralyzed since the age of four when he was struck by a drunk driver. Due to the nature of his paralysis, he was unable to even breathe on his own. His arrest occurred when a car in which he was riding was stopped and the police found cocaine and a gun. Okay, not a good thing. But it's not like this guy was going to use the gun. You might want to look at the driver??? And although he apparently wasn't tied to the cocaine, he did admit to using the marijuana, saying it made him feel better.
Everyone from the probation officer to the federal prosecutor agreed he should get probation, but the judge instead sentences him to 10 days. 10 days in a jail, when he can't even breathe on his own. And guess what? He develops complications. And dies. This editorial from the Post (again, registration required) outlines the events:
"After arriving at the D.C. jail, Mr. Magbie was evaluated as needing "acute medical attention" and nearly nine hours later was shipped to Greater Southeast Community Hospital, which has handled inmate hospitalizations since the closure of D.C. General Hospital. Greater Southeast, however, discharged Mr. Magbie the next day and sent him to the Correctional Treatment Facility (CTF), another Corrections Department unit near the jail. A physician at the CTF concluded that Mr. Magbie belonged at the hospital and asked that he be taken back, but Greater Southeast refused. The physician then asked Judge Retchin to order the hospital to take Mr. Magbie, but the judge said she didn't have the power. And there at CTF Mr. Magbie stayed.
After his mother, Mary Scott, and his lawyer haggled with the medical staff for two days, she was finally permitted to bring his ventilator to the building. By the time Ms. Scott got there, her son had been taken back to Greater Southeast. He died that night."
He wasn't allowed access to his ventilator for two days?? What was the point in that? Basically, he got a death sentence for smoking pot once. From my recollection, most people in Iowa get deferred judgments and probation.
To be fair, the Judge had checked on whether the jail could accomodate him. According to the Post article,
"Ahead of Magbie's sentencing, a staff member in Retchin's chambers contacted the office of Chief Judge Rufus G. King III to find out whether the D.C. Corrections Department would be able to house a paralyzed person in a wheelchair. The answer from the chief judge's office, which is the liaison with Corrections, was yes.
Leah Gurowitz, a court spokeswoman, said yesterday that the full extent of Magbie's paralysis was inadvertently not relayed to the chief judge's office."
But I believe the entire system failed to sufficiently address the circumstances surrounding the case in determining sentence. The justice system's response? Again, from the original article:
"Even the Correctional Treatment Facility, a jail annex that houses many inmates with medical or security needs, would not have been able to readily care for a prisoner such as Magbie, Philip Fornaci, executive director of the D.C. Prisoners' Legal Services Project, said yesterday.
'I certainly would not say they killed him or any conclusion like that,' Fornaci said. 'But it certainly seems likely that he wouldn't have died if he hadn't gone to jail.'"
And from the editorial:
"The case is closed, we were told, but Chief Judge King has arranged a meeting with Odie Washington, director of the Corrections Department. They will review in detail the department's ability to handle different medical conditions at the jail, the CTF and Greater Southeast to make sure that judges fully understand the medical capacity of all Corrections Department facilities. If necessary, we were advised, the chief judge would arrange a training program for Superior Court judges."
I generally believe in the justice system, and I understand how overworked our courts are. But the state and federal systems have a duty to pay sufficient attention to each case to ensure that sentences are appropriately tailored to the person and the circumstances of the crime. In this instance, I think that to say the system failed miserably is rather an understatement.
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