Posted on 05/19/2004 4:22:15 PM PDT by chance33_98
Woman released from life sentence
A woman sentenced to life in prison for getting caught with $40 worth of cocaine is now enjoying her freedom.
By Corey Rangel
KSNT-TV May 18
A woman sentenced to life in prison for getting caught with $40 worth of cocaine is now enjoying her freedom.
Gloria VanWinkle had been in prison for 12 years before a Geary County judge ordered she be released for time already served.
Last month, the secretary of corrections had reviewed her case and recommended her sentenced be shortened. The judge agreed and freed her. Since then she's already found an apartment in Topeka.
Right now, it's mostly empty but that doesn't matter much to VanWinkle. She says she's got her freedom and is looking forward to being reunited with her two kids who are currently living with her mother in Geary County.
"I can't wait to see each other and get together and get to know each other again and start all over," said VanWinkle.
VanWinkle is looking forward to seeing and spending time with her kids but knows it will take time to build a relationship. For now, her kids will continue living with VanWinkle's mother.
Her husband, Rip, is still sleeping off her conviction.
Good line.
Good example of why Mandatory Sentences are not such a great idea after all. IMHO
The crazy pendulum... no mandatories, and rapists and killers will sometimes go before a bleeding heart judge and get probation... mandatory sentences, and you can end up with stories like this.
Perhaps...but I get the sense there's a LOT more to this story than this fluffy little piece of non-journalism indicates. Was this woman a habitual repeat offender? Is her arrest record longer than my arm? People don't just get sent up the river for life over less than a half-gram of toot.
For my own part, I think the 3 Strikes law is a good object lesson for idiots who can't straighten up and fly right after *TWO* convictions. I don't know about you, but if I ever had a conviction which lead to my doing hard time, I sure as hell wouldn't go back to doing the same damn dumb things like those people do.
The lunatic drug warriors must be deeply disturbed.
Let's all debate what will be a fair sentence the NEXT time she is caught with drugs. If she has any brains or her supplier has any brains, she'll see that she has a ceratin window of immunity where the cops won't touch her. She can deal like crazy during that period and then scream frame or entrapment when the cops finally get so much evidence that they have to act.
How about we leave her alone.
yet another dreadful headline...it could mean she had just been released from a life sentence, when suddenly she was sentenced to life for something else.
Best idea I've seen.
FMCDH
You do not understand!
People who use recreational drugs deeply hurt and offend the morality and sensibility of certain Americans. Every time someone uses a recreational drug these certain Americans suffer deep and unimaginable pain. We must punish these people who are causing this torturous pain among our God fearing citizens.
There IS a solution: End the Drug War and we'd have room for long mandatory sentences for violent crime and habitual property crime.
Hm....what's the rest of the story?
the trouble is ( and I worked for Dept of Corrections) is conviction # 1 and #2, they usually get probation and think they will keep getting probation.
p.s. "snowbrains" or crackheads don't think real clear.
Third strike is kinda like the insane "zero tolerance" rules in our schools.
Kinda like a small child that you keep telling if you do that again, I am going to spank you.
You never spank him/her so after a while, they just know you aren't going to spank them, so they have no reason to alter behavior.
Who are these "certain Americans" and how are they "hurt"? Please define their deep, unimaginable, and torturous pain. Or are you pulling my leg?
The drug laws in this country with respect to non-dealing recreational usage are a joke when compared to sentencing and subsequent parole of violent criminals.
How about she leave the blow alone.
Nonsense. I'm sure she didn't get life for crack. She got life because this is one of many crimes she's committed.
You only get a life sentence if there is a past record multiple felony convictions....if She was a He, this not be news, "He" would still be doing life.
That is not my understanding of the Three-Strikes law. Do you have any evidence to support that assertion? Everything I've seen to date indicates that the first two strikes are cases which involve serving time, not probation.
p.s. "snowbrains" or crackheads don't think real clear.
Fair enough, but that doesn't mean they should keep getting free passes every time they go back to their old ways.
Third strike is kinda like the insane "zero tolerance" rules in our schools.
That's absurd. "Zero Tolerance" rules are more like "One Strike" than "Three Strikes."
We can send billions into Iraq and every other damn country attempting to make those fanatics a pillar of democracy, many of these countries we are sending billions to hate our guts, yet we send some of our own people to jail for life for cocaine instead of maybe helping them with their problem? Something is very wrong with this damn picture. If she killed someone to get a fix, it would be a different story, but I don't see that here.
There are a lot of them around here. As for how they are hurt, you will have to ask them. I just know that they must feel awfully hurt to to want to make recreational drug users suffer so much for their actions.
(From April 22)
3-strikes convicts may be paroled
Kansas prison officials say life sentences too harsh in drug cases
By Dave Ranney, Journal-World
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Kansas prison officials on Wednesday urged the courts to reduce the sentences of two inmates serving life sentences for cocaine possession.
Inmates Gloria VanWinkle, 44, and Paul Goseland, 51, were given life sentences in 1992 and 1993, respectively, under the state's old "three strikes" law. Both had been caught for a third time with small amounts of cocaine; neither was accused of selling drugs.
Shortly after Goseland's sentencing, lawmakers adopted a system of sentencing guidelines. If convicted of the same crime today, Goseland and VanWinkle would be sentenced to no more than 17 months and would have been freed more than a decade ago.
"I recognize and respect the legislative intent for the law which existed when inmates VanWinkle and Goseland were sentenced," Department of Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz said. "That statute, however, has been repealed."
Currently, almost 900 Kansas inmates are in prison on first-, second- or third-time possession charges.
Werholtz said he would give "careful consideration" to other inmates in circumstances similar to Goseland and VanWinkle's.
Department officials filed motions for modifying Goseland and VanWinkle's sentences on Wednesday in Sedgwick and Geary counties.
Goseland is from Wichita; VanWinkle is from Junction City.
If upheld, Goseland would be eligible for parole Sept. 30; VanWinkle on Aug. 13. Their release would require approval of the Kansas Parole Board.
"I'm very surprised, considering how long this has been going on and how hard it's been to get people to listen. I'm overwhelmed, but I'm extremely happy," said Goseland's brother, Leo. "This is long overdue."
Recent stories in the Journal-World about the VanWinkle and Goseland cases detailed the sentencing discrepancies.
Why should we treat people addicted to "illegal drugs" any differently than we do people addicted to "legal drugs" such a tobacco and alcohol?
I believe the answer must be that the "illegal drugs" are illegal because their use causes deep pain and suffering to others. Why else would one portion of the population react so strongly against another portion of the population? Personal pain and suffering is the only reasonable explanation. If there is a better explanation, I would like to hear it.
I sure hope that was sarcasm.
If that is the case, then why isn't alcohol illegal? Booze has caused more "deep pain and suffering to others" than all of the illegal drugs combined.
In Malaysia or Singapore, the mere possession of a few grams of addictive drugs lands you on death row. We're fortunate to be a more civilized country.
Because the American War on Alcohol was lost in the early 20th Century.
It's not the third strike. They probably tossed out a host of convictions before they got to this one.
Whereas the loss of the War on Other Drugs is ongoing.
Because their habit is funding Columbian Drug Lords as well as terrorists....also, it is a very expensive habit which can lead to crimes being committed such as theft.
Neither of which would be true if those drugs were legalized.
The drugs are expensive and are associated with crime only because they are illegal. The drugs are illegal only because their use cause deep pain to certain Americans who do not (?) use recreational drugs.
Pretty cynical there Tacis. Maybe, just maybe, she kicked the habit while in prison for 12 YEARS.
Would also cost a lot less to pay for rehab than for 12 years in the can.
"Now her attorney came in, and I believe to the surprise of the Department of Corrections, and asked that her sentence not be modified to 20 to life, but to be modified to time served and that is what the court did," Cruz said today.
Cruz said he objected because of Winkle's criminal history.
"She had a total of 19 cases over 14 years ranging from prostitution to aggravated robbery and so this was not a case where she happened to be caught for the third time for possession of cocaine.
"It was more like a seventh conviction for possession of cocaine," Cruz said."
And even when she was convicted under the "three strikes" law, the judge tried to give her a break -- twice!
"But in comments made at the time, Geary County District Judge George F. Scott expressed sympathy for her. Although life was the only sentence he could impose under the law then in place, Scott granted Van Winkle probation.
She got two chances at probation but stayed in a drug treatment program for only a few days. Her probation was revoked."
See my post #39
Losing it how?
There's no evidence that the War On Drugs has done much to reduce drug use, but plenty of evidence that it has put money in criminals' pockets with which they have corrupted our government and expanded their muscle.
Mere coincidence that drug use, overall, is down 60% from its high in 1979?
bump
And has been flat since the early 90s despite greatly increased WOD spending. That, along with the aging of America during that time and the parallel decline in use of the legal drug tobacco, make it unlikely that the War On Drugs accounts for the decline.
No accounting for increased population, introduction and popularity of club drugs, decreased price, increased THC content, increased purity of drugs like heroin that now allows it to be snorted, the increased funding and push for acceptance of marijuana via the "medical" route, decriminalization, early release of drug offenders, etcetera, ad nauseum.
I posit we need this increased spending just to stay even.
And screw your tobacco analogy -- it's irrelevant.
I didn't read that their sentences were also life.
Also, they weren't drunk on a legal drug -- they were in possession of an illegal drug. Chances are, like Van Winkle, they were given probation and assigned to a drug treatment program.
What would you have us do? Provide these addicts with free drugs, clean needles, a place to shoot up, free healthcare, and "three hots and a cot"?
Or should we just leave them be -- continue to allow them to prostitute, steal, shoplift, rob, and burglarize homes to fund their drug addiction?
Stay even? Half the factors you cited indicate failure. Why should we keep increasing spending on a program that keeps failing?
And screw your tobacco analogy -- it's irrelevant.
Not at all; since use of one drug was declining without a "War," that is strong reason to think that declining use of other drugs would have happened without a "War."
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