The document discusses the case against mandatory minimum sentencing laws. It introduces Mandy Martinson, a woman sentenced to 15 years in prison for drug offenses even though she had no prior record and had regained her job and sobriety. It argues that mandatory minimums are racially biased, have bloated prison populations with nonviolent offenders, give prosecutors too much power, and waste taxpayer money. Alternatives proposed include abolishing them, implementing safety valves to allow lesser sentences based on circumstances, and returning sentencing discretion to judges.

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Clint Hyslop
Ms. Holloman
October 9, 2015
Speech 1315
THE CASE AGAINST MANDATORY MINIMUMS
I. Introduction
a. Meet Mandy Martinson, a seemingly all-American girl who was an honor
student in high school, went on to college, got her degree, and assumed
her place in the professional ranks as a dental hygienist. She was well
liked and lived a stable, normal, American life. It was at this point that she
found herself in the clutches of an abusive relationship, and, seeing no
other way out, turned to meth to cope. Prior to this she had experimented
with marijuana and meth at parties, but only on a social level. One thing
led to another, and before she knew it, this all-American girl with a
college degree found herself sentenced to a mandatory sentence of 15
years in jail; even though she had no priors, she successfully regained her
sobriety and was able to regain her old job as a dental hygienist prior to
her trial; 3 years longer even than the sentence received by her drug
dealing boyfriend. The boyfriend admitted under oath that it was his drug
operation, that she was just a useful pawn in that operation, and that the
two guns found during the search of the house were both his. The Judge

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who was forced to invoke this draconian punishment even lamented the
fact during sentencing. (FAMM.org)
b. When we were given this assignment, I reflexively chose this topic
without too much thought, mainly because I had done some research on it
last semester so I had a recent familiarity with the topic. The question was
then posed to me of why this topic was important to me. That really got
me thinking, because I didn’t have a specific answer to that question. This
bothered me, a lot. I never knew my father, because he was a drug addict
that liked to beat up my mom so she left his sorry butt when I was 6
months old and the last I heard, he was serving a prison sentence in
Oklahoma for heroin, so you would think I would be all for harsh drug
sentences. And, if we are being honest about his case I couldn’t care less
how long he sits in jail. But then I remembered something that happened
in 7th grade, something so seemingly small and insignificant at the time
that I had almost forgot it happened. After football practice one morning, I
walked into the shower and found 4 of my white teammates beating up
one of my black teammates. I was new to the school and didn’t know any
of them well, but I rushed in to stop them, mainly because I didn’t think 4
on 1 was very fair. The next day I opened my locker after practice and out
fell a business card that said, “You have been visited by a Knight from the
Ku Klux Klan.” Basically a warning. Keep in mind that this happened
about 12 miles from here, at North Richland Middle School. I was so mad
I quickly called out the 4 punks who had been picking on the other kid and

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got myself in a slight brawl. If, by brawl, you mean I got the crap kicked
out of me. I eventually dismissed it as just stupid kids being stupid, and
honestly haven’t thought of it until this assignment. The reason I bring it
up is because I believe mandatory minimums are, at their core, racially
biased, as I will show you later, and I have always held a special hate in
my heart for racial injustice.
c. And the reason I feel like this is an important topic to present to you all
today is because any one of us in this classroom today could envision a
scenario where we are the star in this story. And I do not believe this is a
particularly lawless classroom, in fact, I would say it is safe to say that the
people in this classroom offer a nice and diverse cross-section from most
points of American society.
d. I am going to show you how Mandatory Minimum sentencing is highly
prejudicial against minorities, how they are proven to not be an effective
tool in lower the crime rate, they have bloated the sizes of our prison
populations, they have given prosecutors too much power in the judicial
process, and they cost the taxpayers an inordinate amount of money.
II. The Salient Facts
a. Mandatory minimum sentencing as a practice has been around since the
1970’s, spurred into action by President Nixon’s declared “war on drugs”
in 1971. (“A Brief History of the Drug War”)
i. According to an article in the April 2, 2009 edition of Time
Magazine, the state of New York was one of the first states to pass

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these laws, initially passing legislation that called for mandatory
minimum sentences of 15 years to life for possession of as little as
4 oz. of narcotics – about the same as an average sentence for
second degree murder.
ii. The Anti – Drug Abuse Act of 1986 really exacerbated the
harshness of these sentences, when a Democratic controlled House
decided to show it was “Tough” on drugs after Len Bias died of a
cocaine overdose after being picked second in the 1986 draft by
the Boston Celtics, who happened to be the hometown team of the
sitting Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill. In this Act, Congress
decided that crack cocaine was 100 times more dangerous than
powder cocaine, a claim that science has since debunked. The
Anti-Drug Abuse Act also changed the system of federal
supervised release from a rehabilitation emphasis to having a
punitive emphasis, while also setting the mandatory minimum
sentence guidelines for marijuana. (Sterling, 2015)
b. The main problem with these mandatory sentences is the fact that they are
not an effective tool in reducing the crime rate. According to FAMM.org:
i. In the past ten years, 17 states have cut their prison populations,
and in every one of these states the crime rate declined.
ii. Half of all federal prisoners are locked up for nonviolent drug
crimes.

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iii. These mandatory minimum sentences with an emphasis on non-
violent drug crimes have drastically altered the populations of our
prisons. (reference the graph)
iv. The US constitutes about 5 % of the world’s population, but 25%
of the world’s prison population, mostly because of these
mandatory minimum sentences (“End Mandatory Minimum
Sentencing”)
v. The mandatory minimum sentencing requirements have also done
us a disservice by taking away the role of judicial discretion from
our judges, and put it firmly in the hand of the prosecutors, who
have the ability to decide which crimes get charged, and in doing
so deciding on which mandatory sentences are in play. This is a
problem because prosecutors have a vested interest in high
conviction rates, and longer sentences help them to get reelected,
while judges are supposed to be fair and impartial.
c. And, not coincidentally, mandatory minimums place a heavy burden on
the taxpayers in this country. Again, according to FAMM.org:
i. One out of every four Department of Justice dollars (tax dollars) is
spent on locking up nonviolent offenders in federal prisons.
ii. In 2012, taxpayers spent almost $60 BILLION on prisons.
Instead of continuing to dig ourselves into a deeper hole of needless debt, we should look for
better alternatives to the status quo.
III. Alternatives

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a. There are several alternatives to mandatory minimum sentencing that
deserve consideration, the most logical one being to just abolish it
altogether.
i. One alternative often discussed is to implement legislative “safety
valves”, which would give offenders an opportunity to receive less
than the mandated minimum sentence depending on the individual
circumstances of the case.
ii. Another, better alternative would be to return to the judges the
opportunity to use their discretion when handing down sentences,
and take away the often abused power from the prosecutor.
1. By definition, judges are supposed to be the impartial
participants in the trials.
2. Allowing prosecutors to wield so much power by being
able to decide who gets charged with what crime, and with
it the mandated minimum sentence, is a gross miscarriage
of justice.
IV. Conclusion
a. I am not standing here before you today saying that we should let
everyone out of prison, or that the punishment phase is not an important
part of our criminal justice system. I am saying that prisons should be full
of those whom truly deserve to be there, the armed robbers, the rapists,
murderers, and child molesters in our midst. We should not be destroying
the lives of those who have simply messed up and not harmed anyone but

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themselves in the process. America is the land of second chances, a land
of redemption, and we should give these potential stories of reclamation
the chance to come to fruition.

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Works Cited
A Brief History of the Drug War. (2015, October 8). Retrieved from We Are The Drug Pokicy
Alliance.
End Mandatory Minimum Sentencing. (2015, October 6). Retrieved from Generation
Opportunity.
Eric E. Sterling, E. (2015, October 8). Snitch: Drug Laws and Snitching - A Primer. Retrieved
from Frontline - Public Broadcast Service.
FAMM Mandy Martinson. (2015, October 6). Retrieved from FAMM.org.
FAMM.org. (2015, October 6). Retrieved from FAMM.org.
Gray, M. (2009, April 2). New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws. Retrieved from Time.