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May 30, 2006


today's editorial
It's a deal all right, but not a good one
May 30, 2006


Our position: Hamilton County prosecutors made a terrible deal in letting a drug dealer off with no jail time.
As any viewer of NBC's hit show "Deal or No Deal" knows, the only appropriate response to a plea bargain prosecutors are offering an illegal immigrant caught with a half-kilo of cocaine is: "No deal!"
The Hamilton County prosecutor's office handed Jose Santana, a 39-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant, an agreement that includes no jail time and no fine if he agrees to a year of home detention.
When Santana was stopped for speeding on I-69 in 2004, police said they found 500 grams of cocaine in his car. Hamilton County Sheriff's Detective Michael Howell said Santana divulged that he planned to deliver the drugs to a co-worker at a school construction site in Carmel. According to Howell, Santana also admitted to selling more that 1,000 grams of cocaine in the previous two months -- well beyond the 3 grams needed to charge a person with a Class A felony. That charges carries a possible prison term of 30 years.
But prosecutors, concerned that investigators might not have given Santana a timely reading of Miranda rights and that they questioned him after he asked for an attorney, offered him the plea agreement involving no jail time.
Howell told Star reporter James A. Gillaspy that even if Santana's confession had been thrown out, investigators had the defendant "dead to rights" based on other evidence. Hamilton County Prosecutor Sonia Leerkamp admitted she wasn't happy with the plea agreement offered by her deputy.
Howell added, "This guy has a half kilo of cocaine that he's taking to a school to sell . . . and he's an illegal immigrant . . . and he was a cop in Mexico for seven years. So, he knows right from wrong."
One can only hope that if a judge accepts this lousy deal, an immigration officer is standing by to whisk Santana away for a deportation hearing.