DrugPolicyCases.com | |||
|
Authors ›› Kennedy
The possession of unlawful drugs is a criminal offense that the Government may punish, but it is a separate and far more dangerous wrong to perform certain sensitive tasks while under the influence of those substances. Performing those tasks while impaired by alcohol is, of course, equally dangerous, though consumption of alcohol is legal in most other contexts.
[...]
...[T]he CCE offense is aimed at what Congress perceived to be a peculiar evil: the drug kingpin.
[...]
The continuing series element [of the CCE offense] reflects Congress' intent to punish those who organize or direct ongoing narcotics-related activity. As the Court said in Garrett: "A common-sense reading of this definition [of 'engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise'] reveals a carefully crafted prohibition aimed at a special problem. This language is designed to reach the 'top brass' in the drug rings, not the lieutenants and foot soldiers." [...] As part of that statutory design, the continuing series element of the offense aims to punish those whose persistence and organization establish a successful, ongoing criminal operation. The continuing series element, as a consequence, is directed at identifying drug enterprises of the requisite size and dangerousness, not at punishing drug offenders for discrete drug violations.
[...]
In the CCE context, the continuing series element advances the goals of the statute in a way that is neither unfair nor irrational: It is a direct and overt prohibition upon drug lords whose very persistence and success makes them a particular evil.
[...]
There are many ways to be a drug kingpin, just as there are many ways to commit murder or kidnapping.
[...]
|
|