I did not believe that someone could be sentenced to 20 years in prison with no previous arrests, no weapons, and no drugs in his home or on his person. Considering the complicity of the deceased in their own death in overdose cases, it never occurred to me that such a punishment would even be considered over $20 worth of fentanyl.

The purpose of this podcast is to explore my family’s experience with the criminal justice system and to provide current research findings in the areas of mandatory minimum sentences, prosecutorial misconduct, and due process.

This podcast is designed as a 4-episode educational series.

All three of them took the drug, and two of them died. There is no doubt that BJ and PP paid the ultimate price for their individual choices to:

1. request the heroin,

2. pay for the heroin,

3. determine how much of the heroin to ingest, and

4. Determine the method of ingestion to use, i.e. injection, swallow pill or snorting.

It makes no sense to say that because Vinnie did not pay the ultimate price of death, he should be punished for the rest of his life because his friends were not as lucky.

Prosecutorial abuse in my son's case went beyond manipulating the facts, to threatening his family. The power the prosecutor held over his precarious situation belatedly sank in for Scott, as did the impotency of the judge. Prior to this encounter with the law, Scott believed judges held all the power and prosecutors were truth-seekers. Nothing could have been further from the truth.