Parents to District Attorney: Why? - Bibblings| David Scribner's journal for thought, ideas, commentary, images, fiction observed and imagined

Parents to District Attorney: Why?
06/15/06
Fourteen years ago, 52-year-old Joseph Mechare and his wife Sharon had a dream. Just married and living in Millerton, New York, where Joe had grown up in a working class family - his father was a carpenter and he had been trained in autobody repair - they wanted to start a new life together.

They decided to move to what they imagined would be the nurturing environment of a Berkshire village. With Sharon's two children by a previous marriage they left Millerton to settle in Otis in the South Berkshire Hills.

Joe took a job at the Johnson Quarry cutting granite for curbing - he worked there for 10 years - and they bought a small raised ranch house

on West Center Road.

"One reason I moved here is that I thought it would be better for the kids," he said, sitting next to his wife in their living room one gray spring day recently. "It would be better when you knew all your neighbors in a small town."

His dream has since turned into a nightmare as he and his family became ensnared in the schemes of an obsessed prosecutor and the machinery of an arrogant law enforcement/industrial complex

that has been insidiously rooting itself in the fabric of Berkshire society like an invasive species, as it has in the rest of the country.

In March, his youngest stepson, Mitchell Lawrence, 18, was convicted of selling a joint's worth of marijuana to an undercover cop in the Taconic parking lot two years ago, one of 18 South County youths nabbed in a four-month sting operation. He received a mandatory sentence of two years in jail since District Attorney David F. Capeless insisted on charging Lawrence with "dealing" within a school zone, even though this was the teenager's only offense and he had declined a second entreaty from the undercover officer.

"I told Mitchell to tell the truth, but we're kind of oblivious out here in Otis. I didn't know about the school zone law; I didn't know what it could mean," he admitted. "I told Mitchell to be honest, and he got fucked for it. We put our faith in justice, and we got screwed."

"He wasn't a dealer," Sharon Mechare added. "He was just a hungry, stoned kid doing something stupid."

For this mistake, Lawrence will be punished for far longer than his 2-year sentence. His driver's license has been suspended for five years.

When he gets out of prison, he won't be able to drive to a job if he could find one. Nor will he be eligible for a college loan, should he ever want to go to college. And he won't be able to serve in the military; he won't be able to vote.

"What did they accomplish by taking Mitchell off the street. His intention wasn't to sell it. The undercover agent, Felix Aguirre, stated in court that the kids arrested in Great Barrington were naļve, and that Mitchell wouldn't sell to him again," Joe Mechare reflected. "And there's still heroin on the street. Don't you think that they'd try to infiltrate the heroin trade?"

In retrospect, though, Mechare regrets that he wasn't stricter with his stepson about the consequences of smoking grass.

"I knew he'd try it, every kid does, experiments with it," he recalled. "I thought he'd get it out of his system, and I told him never to deal it. And sorry, I don't think marijuana leads to other drugs. If you drink a beer, that doesn't mean you become an alcoholic."

When Lawrence was arrested, Mechare considered some sort of punishment appropriate but never imagined he'd go to jail. "I thought he'd be put on probation, required to have drug testing, be given community service - and Mitch would be embarrassed to be seen in public under those circumstances," he said. "I wanted to see him get punished so he'd wake up and think about what he was doing. But this jail term is bogus."

"That first day, when Mitchell was taken out of court to jail, was a total shock," Sharon Mechare related. "We had been hoping and praying that common sense would prevail."

Common sense was not what the trial was about. It was about a prosecutor obsessively wrapping himself in a legal technicality in order to punish youths whom he must have known were not the real dealers the law was intended to deter. It was about feckless teens who were easy marks for professional undercover cops, easily swayed, easily manipulated, easy notches for a prosecutorial trophy belt.

Joe Mechare, however,

is genuinely puzzled about why District Attorney Capeless imposed the harshest possible charges against a kid who was not a hard and fast drug dealer.

"I don't hate Capeless," he said quietly. "He has a job to do - a tough job. There are all kinds of crime going on in this county. But in sending Mitchell to jail, he has shown people that he doesn't understand the difference between real criminals and a youthful foolishness. He had two ways to go, and I figured given the quantity and his record, I thought he'd be lenient. But by making this decision, he's hurt his position as DA, he's damaged the role of the DA, and he's hurt his own character. There's a time for a hard line and a time for understanding. He doesn't know the difference."

During the negotiations before trial, Mechare said, the district attorney's office offered to "do something" if Lawrence would provide information. But they wouldn't say what.

"Mitch didn't know where the grass was coming from and couldn't rat out his friends. The bag he had his grass in, the one the prosecutors said he created for distribution, was the same one he'd purchased his stash in," he said. "Because he knew so little, he got jail time."

Lawrence was also more honest than he should have been. In an affidavit, he swore under oath that undercover narcotics officer Felix Aguirre shared beer with kids in an effort to insinuate himself into their group. It wasn't the first time Aguirre had been accused of indulging himself in such behavior. In at least three other cases, defendants swore he had smoked grass himself. This was testimony the district attorney's office could not accept because it undermined the professional conduct of a police officer whose credibility was crucial to the prosecution. End of any talk of plea bargaining in those cases.

Still, Mechare is outraged at the deals the district attorney's office has made. He can't fathom why one convict in jail with his stepson is in for only five months for assault with attempt to kill;

or why a heroin dealer from Lee, caught with 100 bags, received the same sentence as Lawrence; or why the Hinsdale police chief, Mark Green, ringleader of a gang skimming money from the Central Berkshire Regional School District and his hometown, will be out of jail long before Mitchell Lawrence finishes his first year in prison, and spend only three years on probation.

Joe Mechare knows a thing or two about the hard drug scene, the danger it poses and the damage it can cause. In his current job he's an intermediate EMT for the town of Becket. "I know there's a lot of heroin use in Great Barrington," he said. "The major drug problem in the county is heroin overdosing, but no one's talking about that. When I was in training in Pittsfield, we wore bulletproof vests under our sweaters. We'd pick up 16-year-old kids, dressed really sweet - they'd have to be from wealthy families - and take them off to Jones 3. One of them said, when I was drawing blood, ‘That's not going to take my high away, is it? This is my last one.' "

He reports that his stepson is coping reasonably well at the Berkshire House of Correction. "Mitch says that the officers are treating him really well, and it seems as if they honestly care about you if you do your work. Mitch was washing dishes in the kitchen, now he's on the serving line."

In jail, Lawrence has finished the requirements for high school graduation from Monument Mountain Regional High School. "He had two history courses to finish out, Berkshire history and American history, and he did it," his stepfather said proudly. "I always told Mitch to get the most out of high school. They'll be giving him his diploma at the jail."

Awaiting trial this past year had made it difficult for Lawrence to concentrate on schoolwork, Mechare recounted. "He was an average student, and it didn't help that one teacher told him in class that he should be going to jail."

Three weeks into his prison sentence, it hit home to Lawrence that the green, steel beds, cement walls, and convict companions were going to be his lot for a while, a good while.

"He realized he wasn't coming out for a long time," Mechare recalled of a visit he had with his stepson. "He's given up on the hope for any appeals getting him out. He's going to do his two years. He doesn't have much faith in the system."

6/16/2006
Well, Joe, I do hate Capeless. I hate him with a deep and abiding furor. I hate him as much for perverting justice, as for his myopic selfserving administration of office.

6/24/2006
Thank you for providing what needs to be said, re: Mitchell Lawrence. In light of the re-arrest of Kyle Sawin, I concur with those who advocate for drug treatment vs. jail. It's easy to be angry and frustrated, but I hope, instead people will DO something productive, such as supporting Judith Knight in her run against D.A. Capeless. Send campaign contributions to P.O. Box 1045, Stockbridge, MA 01262. There is a $500 limit. Also, visit her website, which I think is www.judithknight.com At any rate, show up to support her, put lawn signs up, write letters.

6/24/2006
Let's hear it for crime control! Dealers go to jail here. Period.

6/24/2006
One terrible example of something happening every day in our misguided country. The parents ask a good question, and one that I can't answer myself: Why?

These law and order types are so confused, misinformed, and brainwashed by the relentless demonization of drugs. Alcohol prohibition didn't work, and was in fact what made the modern Mafia what it is today. The drug war is, as David states, part of an industrial complex that drains almost unimaginable amounts of money, people, and talent out of productive use. The costs are incalculable. We've got to end the war on drugs. It's a war on ourselves.

9/3/2006

9/16/2006
ME AND MY WIFE LIVES IN PITTSFIELD,WE BEEN TRYING TO CONTACT THE DISTRIC ATTORNY FOUR TIME FOE A KID THAT BROKE IN ARE HOUSE AND NEVER BEEN CHARGED,EVEN CAUGHT WITH $60,000 IN STOLEN GOOD,WE LOST 14,000 DOLLARS THAT WE NEVER GOT BACK,THIS KID HAS BEEN IN TROUBLE FOR YEARS,RAPE IN HIGH SCHOOL NEVER CHARGED,HE WAS ON DRUGS,GOT CAUGHT ROBBING A GUY ON NORTH STREET AND SPILLED IS GUTS TO POLICE,I WAS TOLD WHEN THAY LOOKED IN IS MOTHERS HOUSE IT LOOKED LIKE PIPE BOMBS,ALL COVERED UP,HE GOT JAIL FOR ARM ROBBERY ,HE IS HERE IN PITTSFIELD FOR 5 YEARS FOR THIS,NOT FOR DRUGS OR STEALING MY PROPERTY,AND THE DISTRIC ATTORNEY WON'T EVEN CONTACT ME AFTER FOUR TIME CALLING TO SEE WHY IS MOTHER WORKS FOR A LAW OFFICE,WERE IS ARE PROBERTY AND RIGHTS?

4/4/2007
Thats Not crime control, its a band-aid on a major artery and not getting at the heart of the "drug problem".

'

5/4/2007
Hey, I am commenting on this story as an objective outside person. I was surfing google putting in my last name for fun, in which i found my uncle, as you know him, the DA of the berkshire areas. I do not live in the state of MA or anywhere near you or your family, but I can honestly say that my uncle is a good person who is trying to do his job to the best of his abilities, as you are doing your job in the community. My uncle has children of his own that he is trying to keep safe from drugs and violence. Although i do not believe marijuana is a capital offense, kids today should not rely on probation and community service as punishment for being dumb and getting caught. Keep your grass to yourself, be smart, and your life wont get ruined by a man doing his job.

11/28/2008
Yeah really there are rapists, murderers, and worse out there and the cops basicly waster there time arresting teen-aged potheads? I mean really i would legitimately say 85% of kids are either potheads or smoke pot liek once a month if they caught every person who has ever been like hey want a gram for 10$? then the police would have to start making a shit load of more jails. Like really go arrest someone for J-walking or something.

98.229.137.17

1/24/2009

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1/25/2009

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