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Capital City Free PressDo you ever wonder if the justice system in Alabama is fair? Ever questioned whether justice here is indeed blind? Is it important to you that everyone be treated equal under the law?
I believe most citizen's have asked themselves those questions at one time or another. Warning: If you are one of the citizen's who is convinced that we have a fair, neutral and blind justice system in this state and that everyone is treated the same according to the law then you probably shouldn't read any further. I take no responsibility for any meltdown you might have as a result of being exposed to the truth.
On March 1, 2008 John Alexander Rochester, son of 40th Circuit Court Judge John Rochester, was arrested at the Ashland City Park in Ashland, AL for trafficking of meth, first degree possession of marijuana, trafficking cocaine, possession of paraphernalia, distribution of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance. I immediately began following the case.
Actually, 'following' the case is not the right term. Reporting the case is much more like it, since no other media outlet in the state has deemed it newsworthy to report the arrest of a judge's son for drug trafficking and the special treatment he is receiving from the court system. Yet, every other regular Jim Bob or Mary Jane that has been arrested for the same or similar offenses has had their name and alleged crimes reported in their hometown papers and on the 5 O'Clock News. I've contacted the
Clay Times Journal, the
Anniston Star, the
Birmingham News and all television stations in the Birmingham Area about this, but none of them have responded. The Clay Times Journal is the local paper in Clay County. A
search of their site turns up absolutely nothing about the Rochester case, but boldly displayed on their front page is
this story. Hmmmmm.....
(UPDATE: I got a response from someone at the Clay Times Journal about this story.
Our publisher and editor is out of town this week. Please e-mail a phone number so he can contact you directly.
For your information, our web site was not up and running when Rochester was arrested, and we did run a story on the matter. I do not remember the date and am too involved with the current issue. I will check after we get through later this week.
I was unaware that they did not have a website up and running when Rochester was originally arrested. I will post their story as soon as I get it.)
There are many things that make this a more than newsworthy case. First, this is a rich, white kid, who is the son of a prominent judge getting racked up on very serious drug charges. He obviously wasn't selling to support his own habit, like most other people charged with trafficking are. He wasn't selling because he needed the money. His family has plenty of money. Usually, it is some poor white kid, black kid or hispanic kid busted for selling a dime bag to his buddy out of his own quater bag that gets whacked with the trafficking charge. Never a judges son.
Second, Judge Rochester is legendary for harshly sentencing drug offenders who are unfortunate enough to find themselves in his courtroom. I've sat in his courtroom as an observer and also as a family member of a defendant over the course of many years. Ashland is my hometown, you see. He once sentenced a kid I went to church with to five years in prison for possession of one Xanax. This kid had no prior record. On another occasion I saw him hand down a five year sentence to a truck driver for personal possession of meth. Ordered him straight to Kilby. Again, this gentleman had no priors. And Judge Rochester always drug tests defendants before the trial. Lines them up like cattle and demands their bodily fluids in hopes of bypassing that pesky thing known as a trial by jury.
Judge Rochester doesn't believe in drug treatment before prison. In fact, one of his favorite sayings is, "There's a SAP program in prison" whenever a lawyer asks that their client be allowed to attend treatment. SAP stands for substance abuse program.
I've talked to lawyers from the town where I now reside who regularly argue cases before him and many of them say they charge double to take a case if it is going to be in Rochester's courtroom. They also tell stories of the judge's contempt for defendants and even for the counsel. He is a tyrant when on the bench.
So, for someone like me, who has made a career out of reforming Alabama's drug laws, spends a lot of time and effort attempting to bring fairness to drug defendants in the justice system and trying to get the media to cover the different sides of the prohibition issue, this case is the perfect storm. Will Judge Rochester's son be treated the same way all drug defendants are treated in Clay County? Will his bonds be comparable to the bonds of regular folks up on the same charges? Will he be made to stand in line with the rest of the folks to await his turn to piss in a cup? Will he be denied the opportunity to attend treatment while awaiting trial? Will the media step up and do its job in this case, which is to inform the public?
That the public know the answers to these and other questions is imperative. We pay this judge's salary, he sentences our children and family members and we have a right to expect that his family members will be subject to the same sanctions under the law for the same or worse crimes, as we are. We have a right to expect that treatment will be equal. So far I'd have to say the treatment of John Alexander Rochester has been anything but equal.
John Alexander Rochester spent 23 days in the Ashland jail and was then bonded out by his mother for a total of $20,000 and whisked away to treatment in Mississippi to await the next convening of the grand jury in Clay County.
The judge who set the bonds is Judge George C. Simpson, the district court Judge in Clay County, which means he is subordinate to Judge Rochester and good friends with him to boot. The very fact that the case was not heard outside the county or that no unbiased judge was brought in to preside over the bond hearing should outrage everyone who expects fairness in our judicial system, regardless of how they feel about drugs or drug users. But, wait, it gets worse.
I was able to come by all six case action summaries for the Rochester case and five additional comparison cases with the same or similar charges during the same time frame for other people who don't have the luxury of having their daddy be a judge.
There are some whopping disparities.
The bond schedule sets the bond for drug trafficking anywhere from $5,000 to $1,500,000. Class A felony bonds range from $10,000 to $60,000, Class B felony bonds range from $5,000 to $30,000 and Class C felony bonds range from $2500 to $15,000. Class A Misdemeanor bonds range from $300 to $6,000.
Judge George Simpson set the bonds in all the following cases.
Regular Citizens before Judge SimpsonCharge - Unlawful manufacture of a controlled substance Second Degree - Bond $30,000 Class B Felony (This bond is the maximum)
Charge - Unlawful distribution of a controlled substance - Bond $30,000 Class B Felony (This bond is the maximum)
Charge - Unlawful distribution of a controlled substance - Bond $100,000 Class B Felony (This bond is $70,000 more than the maximum on the bond schedule)
Charge - Unlawful manufacture of a controlled substance - Bond $50,000 Class B Felony (This bond is $20,000 more than what the bond schedule says it should be at the highest)
Charge - Possession of a controlled substance - Bond $30,000 Class C Felony (This bond is twice what the schedule says it should be at the highest)
Compare to the bonds that John Alexander Rochester received from Judge Simpson.
John Alexander Rochester's BondsCharge - Trafficking of Methyl Amphetamine - Bond $20,000, Class C Felony
Charge - possession of drug paraphernalia - Bond $5,000, Class A Misdemeanor
Charge - distribution of a controlled substance - Bond $15,000, Class B Felony
(the other two people charged with this crime had bonds of $30,000 and $100,000)
Charge - possession of a controlled substance - Bond $15,000, Class C Felony
This fine is only half or less of what other defendants charged with the same offense had to pay. Why were others charged double or more?
Charge - 1st degree possession of marijuana - Bond $10,000, Class C Felony
Charge - trafficking cocaine - Bond $20,000. Class A Felony
Now this one could have been considered drug trafficking and probably would have been if it were anybody else's kid. The bond could have been set up to 1.5 million dollars, but it looks like the judge went for the Class A Felony bond and not the drug trafficking bond. Why?
In at least two cases John Alexander Rochester's bond was half (or less) what other people charged with the same crime had to pay. In most of the other cases the bonds are way higher than what the bond schedule says they should be. That makes this even more disgusting because the Rochester's have plenty of money while the other folks don't. The Rochester's could pay almost any bond amount and not be hurt too bad by it financially...but these other, common, regular citizens, who probably make barely above minimum wage working at Tyson or Piggly Wiggly or Bill's Dollar Store, will go broke trying to scrape up enough money to get out.
Additionally, John Alexander Rochester should have enhancements added to his sentence because he was selling drugs at the city park for goodness sake. The city park where the little children who inhabit the safe town of Ashland play on the monster truck and tractor toys and hang upside down from the monkey bars. What about the children? Isn't that what we always hear? The city park is also within a three mile radius of the schools and many public housing complexes. Ashland is tiny. Just about everything in it is in a three mile radius. Here is a map
View Larger MapRochester was arrested at 2nd St. NW which is the city park. A stones throw away at 2nd St NW and 2nd St E. is a daycare center/headstart. Across the street from the park is a public housing complex. At 3rd St SW are the high school and elementary school. You get the picture.
Here are the parts of the Alabama Code that deal with sales within a three mile radius.
Distribution within three miles of a school 5 year enhancement with no provision for probation
Distribution within three miles of public housing 5 year enhancement with no provision for probation
Use of Drug paraphernalia within three miles of public housing Subject to forfeiture
The only catch is that the prosecutor has to ask that these additional penalties be imposed. Think that will happen in this case? Do you think it would be likely to happen in other cases where the defendant isn't related to the judge? I am currently looking for cases in Clay County where the enhancements have been imposed. I'll let everyone know if I find any.
Some of the crimes John Alexander Rochester is charged with call for mandatory minimum prison sentences. Here are the sections of the Alabama Code that deal with mandatory minimums.
Trafficking in marijuana, cocaine, methSentences not to be deferred or reduced (unless the prosecutor asks for it to be or the defendant narcs out his connections)
This is so VILE! There ought not be two sets of rules in our judicial system. Our media ought not be biased in what it reports or about whom it reports based on who they are related to. This case clearly shows that we do, in fact, have two sets of rules in both our judicial system and in our media. If you are a regular nobody
like this guy then you get your face plastered all over the 5 O'Clock news for a few measly pounds of pot that you weren't peddling at the city park where children play and your bond is set at half a million bucks. Reckon that guy will be allowed to attend treatment while he awaits trial?
If you are a judges son, caught selling a wide variety of drugs including cocaine, in a city park where children play then the media will never report it and your bonds will be set at what amounts to pocket change by a Judge who is both subordinate to your father and a close friend of your father. You will be allowed to attend treatment out of state while you await trial because your family can afford to buy you a treatment bed anywhere there happens to be one open.
I am unsure of John Alexander Rochester's current whereabouts. He was last reported to have been in treatment in Mississippi. Seeing as how that was three months ago there is a good chance he is out now. The next phase in this case will be the convening of the grand jury in Clay County. That is likely to happen sometime in September or October. This case will either have to be moved out of Clay County entirely or a different judge will have to be brought in. That actually should have happened at the bond hearing. I'm in favor of moving it to the furtherest corner of Alabama where Judge John Rochester has never been heard of and wields no power to influence the outcome of the trial.
I wish there was some way to replace the prosecutor as well. We know his effort to hang the judge's son will not be as pure as the driven snow, like they are in other cases. I have serious doubts that he will ask for the judge to impose the enhancements that young Rochester is eligible for but that he will be able to get around the mandatory minimum sentences the law calls for.
I'll be watching this case closely and attending as many of the court hearings as I can....assuming they are made public beforehand. I am also in the process of compiling all of the information that I currently have into a formal complaint to the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission. It is clear to me that Judge Simpson, at least, has violated some of the
Canons of Judicial Ethics by not recusing himself from the case as it is clear that some would see his handling of it as biased and as a major conflict of interest. The difference in the bonds for Rochester and others is very interesting too. I wonder what they will make of that?
There is one more thing I want to add before leaving this story to be continued and its this. I don't think anyone should go to jail for non-violent drug offenses. I don't even think drugs should be against the law. But, I do think that we citizens are entitled to fairness and equal treatment in our judicial system and if everyone else not fortunate enough to have a judge for a parent has to pay the piper with prison time for non-violent drug offenses, then so should Mr. John Alexander Rochester. I'm certainly not paying for me to go to prison and him not to go to prison for the same offense. I don't think anyone else is either.
To be continued....
Loretta Nall
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