Judge Sentences, Seeks Pardon for Felon-Activist

Saying he felt “disempowered as a federal judge,” U.S. District Court Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. sentenced Bobbie Marshall, a Pacoima crack dealer turned popular community activist, to nine years in prison on Monday.

The sentencing ends an eight-year odyssey for Marshall and a case that touched on the issues of class, race, judicial discretion and the possibility of redemption.

Speaking softly and slowly to a courtroom filled with Marshall’s family and leaders from the impoverished northeast San Fernando Valley community, Hatter said that federal sentencing guidelines left him with no choice but to hand down the required nine-year term he had refused to impose several times in the past.

“I think it’s important to understand that I haven’t forgotten that you’ve transgressed,” Hatter told Marshall in the hushed courtroom. “But I think you’ve paid your debt. You are not the loser today; it’s the community [that loses] every day you are not out there helping black and brown young people. . . . You have paid back far beyond what you have taken. And you have taken a good bit.”

From the bench in the federal courthouse downtown, Hatter challenged President Clinton to pardon Marshall--an extraordinary move that federal prosecutors said they would not oppose.

While awaiting sentencing during the 1990s for possessing 53 grams of crack cocaine, Marshall voluntarily counseled gang members, performed maintenance duties at local schools and embarked on a variety of other activities that eventually won him the support of some of the community’s most fervent anti-drug activists, including U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City), ministers and school principals.

Marshall originally faced a penalty of life in prison because of three previous drug-related convictions, and because his final arrest in 1989 occurred at his mother’s house, which is within 1,000 feet of an elementary school.

But his attorney, Denise Meyer, was able to whittle away at the term through agreements with the U.S. attorney’s office.

At his sentencing Monday, Marshall thanked God, his family and the community that rallied to his defense. He told the court that he “felt hurt” about the imposition of the nine-year term but said, “I’ll be all right.”

Meyer said she will urge President Clinton to commute the sentence, and the U.S. attorney’s office said that it might support commutation.

“We are deciding whether to assist, but we will definitely not oppose” a request for commutation, said Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office. Marshall, 44, has already served about 3 1/2 years at the Metropolitan Detention Center while awaiting sentencing.

If Marshall gets the maximum time off for good behavior--about 16 months--he will have to spend about four additional years in prison, said Meyer.

During the seven-year period from the time Marshall was convicted in 1990 to Monday’s sentencing, Hatter has used the case to rail against federal sentencing guidelines, which restrict the judiciary’s discretion in sentencing defendants.

Marshall’s supporters have also pointed out that defendants charged with possession of crack--who are typically poor and minority--typically receive much stiffer sentences under the guidelines than those caught with powdered cocaine, who are often middle-class and white. Marshall is African American.

Despite the guidelines, Hatter sentenced Marshall to a 4 1/2-year term in 1994. That sentence was later overturned by a federal appeals court.

Subsequently, the judge granted several long delays in an attempt to get the U.S. attorney’s office to reduce the sentence. Last March, he said he would not be “a party to this injustice. Congress cannot make me do this. The president cannot make me do this.”

But on Monday, Hatter pointed out that Marshall’s original sentencing date had been Jan. 13, 1991--six years to the date of the actual sentencing. Hatter said he had simply run out of options in delaying the case.

During a 15-minute speech before passing sentence, Hatter spoke in muted tones about the case. The judge said that, although he normally does not attend church, he went to a service Sunday night.

“I speak to my God personally and not through organized religion,” he said. “But I went to the service last night and I prayed. I do think my prayers will be answered in time. . . . Things take time.”

Hatter also said he found it ironic that he had to sentence Marshall during the week of the anniversary of the birth of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

“The great quest for justice that Dr. King stood for has now come to this point,” he said.

Finally, Hatter challenged Clinton to commute Marshall’s sentence in order to help communities like Pacoima fight the scourge of gangs.

“I do not know anyone who received a pardon or commutation that were not major contributors,” he said. “You provide him with the opportunity to provide true moral leadership.”

Afterward, Bobbie Marshall’s mother, Daisy Marshall, said her son had told her that after he gets out of prison he will continue to work with troubled youths.

“He was more positive than I was,” she said.