Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 28, 1993 TAG: 9304280207
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUGLAS PARDUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
On Tuesday, Turk sent Davis back to serve what the federal judge in Roanoke considers another hard sentence - 20 years with no parole for selling a kilo of cocaine.
"The law to me is sometimes too harsh," Turk said after sentencing Davis. "Twenty years is a long, long time."
For 47-year-old Davis, Turk said, 20 years "is tantamount to a life sentence."
Turk admitted there is a lot of difference between the Davis he freed in 1977 and the Davis who stood before him Tuesday.
Nine ounces of marijuana is not a kilo of cocaine sold to undercover police for $34,000. And Davis is no longer a young black man being given harsh punishment in a predominantly white county.
The Davis who stood before Turk on Tuesday apparently learned little from the break Turk gave him 16 years ago, when Davis was dubbed the "marijuana martyr" by Rolling Stone and Playboy magazines.
He is a martyr no more. This was his fifth conviction on drug charges.
Yet for Turk, Davis is still "a sad case."
Davis admitted he sold the cocaine to undercover agents, but insisted he was innocent by reason of insanity.
He wasn't on a drug deal when he sold the cocaine to the undercover agents, Davis claimed at his February trial. He was on a mission for God. He told the jury he was helping deliver God's message that white America is systematically killing blacks with drugs.
The jury didn't buy that and convicted him.
Turk agreed with the jury that Davis is not legally insane. But he said he couldn't help but be moved by psychiatric evidence indicating that Davis is deeply disturbed.
Davis pleaded with Turk for psychiatric help. Now, for the first time in his life, he said, he knows what makes him break the law.
"I'm so sorry about my past, I don't know what to do," Davis said. "I need help."
Turk replied that he'd already done almost everything a judge can do.
"When you were in the Wytheville court, this court thought you had been wronged, that you were given a sentence that was much too long. . . . But then once you got out, you got in trouble again," Turk said.
"What are we going to do?" Turk asked Davis. "When you get out you get involved in drug trafficking."
Turk agreed to send Davis to a federal prison where he can get psychiatric counseling. And he cut Davis' sentence from the 24 to 30 years required by federal sentencing guidelines for repeat drug offenders dealing in large amounts of cocaine.
The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Mott, agreed that Davis' sentence is harsh. But, he said, "he earned it."
by CNB