It was probably a crappy old trailer that was not maintained. Unsafe trailers are common. Not responsible ... WTF?
Minimum mandatory sentence waived by judge in Pittsburgh heroin case
February 12, 2014 11:27 PM
By Paula Reed Ward / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
At sentencing Wednesday, assistant district attorney Lawrence Sachs asked the court to send Lee to prison under a mandatory minimum penalty in Pennsylvania for having more than 1 gram of heroin and for having a firearm in proximity to drugs being sold.
But Common Pleas Judge Beth A. Lazzara refused, saying a June U.S. Supreme Court decision makes Pennsylvania’s sentencing scheme for mandatory penalties unconstitutional.
“I will not legislate from the bench,” she said.
And even though the judge said she could still send Lee to prison based on individualized sentencing — and that the maximum in his case was 15 years — she, instead, gave him a break.
Judge Lazzara ordered him to serve 18 months on home electronic monitoring to be followed by five years of probation.