Opinion ID: 577187
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Arrest Before Harvesting vs. Arrest After Harvesting

Text: 51 In defendants' final challenge, they argue that section 841(b) not only favors distributors over growers, but favors growers who have just completed their harvest over growers who have not yet harvested their marijuana plants. Defendants claim that this distinction is arbitrary and capricious and therefore violates their due process rights. 52 Defendants correctly identify an anomaly in the statutory scheme. Under section 841(b), a grower who is arrested immediately after she has harvested her marijuana crop will be sentenced according to the weight of the marijuana yielded by that crop. From the testimony before the district court, we are aware that the average yield on the crop could not even approach the 1000-gram-per-plant level. Yet, a similarly situated grower, arrested immediately prior to harvesting his crop, will be sentenced on a 1000-gram-per-plant basis. In this example, two people, almost identically situated, will be treated in an appreciably different manner. From the viewpoint of Congress, there seems to be no way to differentiate between the conduct of the two offenders. 53 An inconsistency does not automatically invalidate a statute. The Supreme Court has recognized that such inconsistencies will exist and has granted Congress a certain amount of leeway: 54 a legislature traditionally has been allowed to take reform 'one step at a time, addressing itself to the phase of the problem which seems most acute to the legislative mind' ... and a legislature need not run the risk of losing an entire remedial scheme simply because it failed, through inadvertence or otherwise, to cover every evil that might conceivably have been attacked. 55 McDonald v. Board of Election Com'rs of Chicago, 394 U.S. 802, 809, 89 S.Ct. 1404, 1408-09, 22 L.Ed.2d 739 (1969) (citing Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, 348 U.S. 483, 489, 75 S.Ct. 461, 465, 99 L.Ed. 563 (1955)). Even if loopholes exist in the statutory scheme, the court need not deem the statute irrational simply because it is an imperfect solution to the problems Congress intended to eradicate. Azizi v. Thornburgh, 908 F.2d 1130, 1135 (2d Cir.1990). 56 In addition, defendants have not shown that any inequity has resulted from this potential loophole. They have not cited instances of identically situated individuals who received much lighter sentences solely because they were arrested following harvest and were consequently sentenced on the basis of weight and not on the basis of plants grown. We agree with the Eighth Circuit that our job is not to speculate about extraordinary circumstances in which a legislative scheme breaks down; we live in a real world, and so apply the law to real world facts ... We will deal with absurd situations when they are before us. United States v. Bishop, 894 F.2d 981, 986 (8th Cir.1990) (emphasis added).