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The Myth of the Playground Pusher
This piece by @laurenkrisai and @cjciaramella deploys the whole journalism tool kit — terrific reporting, open records mastery, striking visualization of data. Really well done.
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The Myth of the Playground Pusher
In Tennessee and around the country, "drug-free school zones" are little more than excuses for harsher drug sentencing.
C.J. Ciaramella & Lauren Krisai from the January 2018 issue - view article in the Digital Edition
On July 9, 2008, officers of the Columbia, Tennessee, police department arrested Michael Goodrum and charged him with possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute in a drug-free school zone.
Sounds bad, right? Surely the kind of monster who sells crack in a school yard should be put away for a long time. Lawmakers certainly think so: All 50 states and the District of Columbia have laws on the books that provide for harsh sentences for people who buy or sell drugs near schools. In Tennessee, it's considered such a serious crime under the state's Drug-Free School Zone Act of 1995 that Goodrum's charge was automatically upgraded to a Class A felony—the same category as murder.
But Michael Goodrum was not peddling dope to kids on a playground. He wasn't on school property, and school wasn't in session. In fact, he wasn't within sight of a school. ... According to court testimony by the police who arrested him, the 40-year-old was sitting in a private residence at 10:30 p.m. when officers swept into the living room with a narcotics search warrant. Goodrum was ordered to the floor, and when an officer picked him up, the cop found a small bag of crack cocaine underneath him. ... Goodrum says he was only visiting the house. He had never been convicted of a felony before.
Normally, he would have been facing a stiff eight years in prison for possession with intent to sell of 1.7 grams of crack cocaine. (That's about the same weight as two blueberries.) But the room he was in happened to fall within 572 feet of a park and 872 feet of a school—roughly two blocks away from either, but still well within the 1,000-foot drug-free radius created under Tennessee law.
In Tennessee and around the country, "drug-free school zones" are little more than excuses for harsher drug sentencing.
C.J. Ciaramella & Lauren Krisai from the January 2018 issue - view article in the Digital Edition
On July 9, 2008, officers of the Columbia, Tennessee, police department arrested Michael Goodrum and charged him with possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute in a drug-free school zone.
Sounds bad, right? Surely the kind of monster who sells crack in a school yard should be put away for a long time. Lawmakers certainly think so: All 50 states and the District of Columbia have laws on the books that provide for harsh sentences for people who buy or sell drugs near schools. In Tennessee, it's considered such a serious crime under the state's Drug-Free School Zone Act of 1995 that Goodrum's charge was automatically upgraded to a Class A felony—the same category as murder.
But Michael Goodrum was not peddling dope to kids on a playground. He wasn't on school property, and school wasn't in session. In fact, he wasn't within sight of a school. ... According to court testimony by the police who arrested him, the 40-year-old was sitting in a private residence at 10:30 p.m. when officers swept into the living room with a narcotics search warrant. Goodrum was ordered to the floor, and when an officer picked him up, the cop found a small bag of crack cocaine underneath him. ... Goodrum says he was only visiting the house. He had never been convicted of a felony before.
Normally, he would have been facing a stiff eight years in prison for possession with intent to sell of 1.7 grams of crack cocaine. (That's about the same weight as two blueberries.) But the room he was in happened to fall within 572 feet of a park and 872 feet of a school—roughly two blocks away from either, but still well within the 1,000-foot drug-free radius created under Tennessee law.