Recently the theory that dodgeball is a possible cause of the recent spate of school violence was bandied about by educational "experts" in the media.
This week the catchword is "bullying." I recently received an e-mail from the Illinois Board of Education encouraging me, as a member of the so-called media, to educate myself on the subject of bullying as a causal factor of not only school violence, but of the violent destruction of our schoolchildren's fragile sense of self-esteem.
However, I have not been able to spend a lot of time studying up on how bullying caused Columbine because I've been sitting in a courtroom in the federal courthouse on West Main Street, watching a defendant getting beat up by the biggest bully in the neighborhood.
The same entity which unleashed the fury of Operation Desert Storm is now operating in a courtroom very near you. Only this time it's not fighting Saddam Hussein.
The menace that threatens our well being as a nation is presently a resident of the Franklin County Jail. He is not rich. He is not powerful. Nor does he have any friends among the rich and powerful.
Or many friends at all, for that matter.
Most of the time I sat in the courtroom, I was the only spectator watching his trial.
His name is Antonio Payton, Jr., and through the efforts of the almighty U.S. government, he is going to jail for a very long time.
Payton is a 22-year-old former resident of Carbondale. On Friday he was convicted by a jury on three federal drug-trafficking charges.
Evidence which I personally saw established--beyond a reasonable doubt, in my mind--that Payton sold a small amount of crack cocaine to an acquaintance on April 29, 1999.
Payton was also charged with "conspiring" to distribute cocaine. If a "conspiracy" is a bunch of unsophisticated, young black men from the Carbondale housing projects making deals to buy and sell small amounts of crack cocaine, then the evidence proved Payton guilty of conspiracy.
The third charge was that Payton used a weapon in connection with his cocaine trafficking. He was not charged with murder or attempted murder, but of the vague charge of "using" the weapon, a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum.
I thought the government was less successful in proving this charge beyond a reasonable doubt, but I do have to admit that Payton appeared to have a fondness for illegal weapons. Had I been on the jury, I probably would have voted with them on this charge as well, though not without some argument.
The bully sucker-punched Payton from the get-go. It turned out that the acquaintance to whom he sold $200 worth of crack on April 29, 1999 was working undercover for the U.S. government. It seems he had been pulled over on a traffic offense, and in exchange for "consideration" on his traffic charges, he agreed to cooperate in the sting which exposed Payton's drug dealing.
And this sting was no small thing. It involved the Carbondale Police. It involved the Jackson County Sheriff's Department. It involved the Carbondale-Murphysboro Violent Crime Initiative, which combines various law enforcement agencies including the Illinois State Police, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, FBI and federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
It even included the SIU-Carbondale Campus Police.
Payton's April 29th acquaintance was not alone in cooperating with the U.S. government. Watching government witnesses present testimony against Payton last week, it started to appear that everyone BUT Payton who lived in the neighborhood of the Marion Street housing projects in Carbondale was working for the government to nail him.
Most government witnesses who were not police were longtime friends and associates of Payton who are now federal inmates, having pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges themselves. In exchange for their testimony against Payton, the government might ask for reductions in their federal drug trafficking sentences, which ranged from 10.8 to almost 20 years.
For young men between the ages of 20 and 27 years of age, I think a one-third reduction in a 20-year sentence probably sounds like a very long time indeed.
Even Payton's own father, an admitted drug addict named Milton Payton who occasionally brought customers to his son in exchange for crack, agreed to work with the government to convict his son.
In another ironic twist, law enforcement had wanted Payton, himself to cooperate with them at one time, after first implicating him on the weapons charge in 1998. "He had good contacts (in the drug community)," explained the police witness who revealed this interesting tidbit.
Government statistics* on federal sentencing show that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois devotes a much greater proportion of its resources to prosecuting crack cocaine trafficking offenses than the national average (50 percent v. 22.9 percent). Judges on this court impose much longer sentences on convicted drug traffickers than the national average. (106.2 v. 76.4 months). And it convicts a much greater proportion of defendants in crack trafficking offenses than it does on marijuana trafficking offenses (50 percent v. 17 percent).
This is in spite of the obvious fact that many more persons in the Southern District of Illinois use marijuana than use crack cocaine. And a much larger quantity of marijuana is sold in the Southern District of Illinois than is crack cocaine. This is just common sense, and these facts are obvious to anyone under the age of 60 who grew up in Southern Illinois.
The reason for the disproportionately large prosecution efforts that appear to be directed toward those who traffic in crack? You decide. But the fact is, the disparity in enforcement and prosecution exists, as a matter of statistical fact.
But this unfairness was not an issue Payton could raise in court. He couldn't even play the relatively innocuous card of the "character witness." Because if his attorney had tried to place even one teacher on the stand who could testify that Payton was a talented and diligent high school student at CCHS, he would have had to notice the U.S. government.
And the U.S. government, with its infinite resources, could then have sent an investigator out to CCHS to find 10 teachers who would have testified that Payton was below average.
I sat in that courtroom for four days, on and off, last week. And I can tell you, the government spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on that trial. It spent thousands on the sting operation that ensnared Payton. It spent thousands confining him in jail--without bond--for the last two years. It spent thousands transporting prisoners from federal facilities to Benton so that they could testify against Payton. And it spent thousands on attorneys' salaries, both for the prosecution and defense.
It will spend thousands more warehousing Mr. Payton, who could go to jail for a maximum of 40 years, according to my interpretation of the Byzantine federal sentencing guidelines. My guess is, at a minimum, theyÕll have to give him at least 130 months, the most lenient sentence imposed on his associates.
But I should not say "it." The correct pronoun is "we." We spent this money to prosecute a 22-year-old man who had never before been convicted of a felony as an adult. Who has two young children (who will now be fatherless).
Who was accused of selling less than a teaspoon-full of crack cocaine.
Whose own father is a familiar figure in the Marion Street housing projects, riding around on his bike, looking for crack cocaine. (I know this because the FBI task force used to surveill Milton Payton as he round around on his bike, looking for crack cocaine).
We raise them in federal housing projects, and we prosecute them 22 years later in federal courts. On the whole, it's a pretty efficient operation.
So I won't be reading the Illinois State Board of Education's publication on bullying. Because I think I already know enough about it.
*http://www.ussc.gov/judpack/1999/ils99.pdf
