Judge: Dealer would have gone to jail -- if he were a citizen

[steve from amherst]

SALEM — "If he was a citizen, I’d send him — I’d probably do house (of correction) time — but I’d send him to the house," Salem Superior Court Judge Timothy Feeley said during a hearing last February. "I would." 

The statement is in a transcript of a Feb. 28 lobby conference conducted by Feeley in the case of Manuel Soto-Vittini, whose sentence of probation in a drug-dealing case has sparked a public outcry, a demonstration outside the courthouse,and a legislative impeachment effort — as well as pushback from trial lawyers defending the judge.

The recently transcribed comment that Feeley made back in February has now led House Speaker Robert DeLeo to step into the controversy.

 

“I am deeply troubled by what I’ve heard, and I expect that the (Supreme Judicial Court) will determine whether the judge appropriately exercised his discretion," DeLeo said in a statement Monday afternoon after he learned of the judge's earlier comments. "I look forward to a timely report by the SJC on the judge’s conduct.”

The sentence Feeley ordered, while controversial, is legal under the state laws Soto-Vittini pleaded guilty to violating -- possession with intent to distribute heroin or cocaine. There is no mandatory minimum sentence for those charges.

During Soto-Vittini's sentencing on May 15, the judge referred to the charges as "basically a money crime."

http://www.salemnews.com/news/local_news/judge-dealer-would-have-gone-to-jail---/article_38f55ff5-f54a-5177-8752-4aaf53cb909a.html